NASCAR CUP SERIES: IOWA CORN 350 POWERED BY ETHANOL

August 3, 2025

William Byron

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by today's race-winning driver of the Iowa Corn 350 Powered By Ethanol, William Byron. How nervous were you there on those final few laps?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I mean, nervous for sure.

I think just kind of -- I don't know, I feel like I've been in -- we've been on the other side of that the last probably month and a half. We've had some situations where we ran out. I knew what to expect. I knew what to look for and all that in terms of if I ran out of fuel.

I was just thinking about preserving as much as I could, doing a lot of different things in the car, lifting early and just not using a lot of throttle percentage.

Just the guys did a really good job coaching me on what to do, and it was kind of amazing that we could continue to stretch it or keep the same gap to second even saving fuel. It was just amazing.

Q. Confidence-wise or feeling better about the playoffs, did you need a win or did you need a win by fuel mileage just to know that you can do it?

WILLIAM BYRON: Right. You never expect to be in a fuel mileage race. But we just had some weird cautions with just the way that -- I feel like it's a lot of things, but Michigan was really just when the caution came out and then we had to stretch that fuel, and really were weren't ever going to make it there. We just were trying to save as much as possible.

I don't know. To answer your question, I think -- I really feel like we needed to win a race. I feel like we deserved to win a race based on how we've run all year. It just wasn't happening.

I felt like we were trying to -- we had to learn how to do basically everything right, and things were still not really working out in our favor.

This was just a big relief to have one go our way, and we've just been running so well this year, I feel like this is going to be a big momentum boost for our team just to be able to check that one off the list and keep carrying the speed that we've had.

Q. You battled Ryan Blaney for the win last year, came out on the wrong side of that. What do you make of winning this race?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I don't know if we came out on the wrong side last year. I think he was the best car, so we didn't really have a lot of chances at winning last year. But we had a good run. We did a good job last year, and I think coming here, we didn't really know what to expect. The track had aged quite a bit, so we'd worked on our short track program, so I feel like short tracks are probably a weakness for us. It's probably the area where we could improve the most.

To have a weekend like we had this weekend just kind of opens up a big door and window for us because this has probably been -- these tracks have been the area we've needed to work on the most.

So just really happy to be in a position to win today. I felt like we were a top 3 or 4 car, and it's just awesome to come home with a win.

Q. Assuming NASCAR comes back here, what do you expect moving forward, whether that's the repave aging, whether that's more track being repaved? What do you expect?

WILLIAM BYRON: Oh, I don't know. I just kind of roll with it.

But I think they should probably see it through now. The track is starting to age pretty quickly. It would probably be good if you repaved the top now, at least repave the straightaways. I'm not sure. It's kind of like our strategy today; once you've committed to it, you've just got to see it through.

I'm not sure where it goes from here, but we're just going to keep hopefully coming here. It was awesome today. The fans, the facility is so clean and nice, and I love this area. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite Cup destinations. It was already there in Xfinity and trucks, but it's becoming that in Cup as well.

Q. There at the end, how much are you keeping an eye on the fuel pressure and then also keeping an eye as Chase Briscoe starts to fade more and more away?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I didn't really understand if those guys were saving fuel as well because I just kept saving more fuel and I kept getting a gap. I was like, man, this is kind of weird.

I haven't -- shoot, I just think about some of the races we've been on the wrong side of this year, and usually someone is catching us at the end and we're having to hold them off.

To be on the other side of it this time and be pulling away and saving fuel was awesome. I was just hopefully that we could save enough.

Rudy was coaching me on how much to save, and I hadn't really gotten any warnings in the car. He told me I had a lap on the switch.

I felt like if I could get off of 4 coming to the white, I could win the race. That's kind of what was in my head, and that was mostly true. I got around and did a burnout and still, I would say, at the tail end had the fuel pressure come up. I don't know how many laps that would have been.

It's just awesome. The guys have worked super hard on the strategy side of things, and to see it all come together today like it did and kind of -- honestly, in the reverse fortune of how it's gone, it was pretty cool.

Q. Now that you've won here in all three series, how special is this place for you having a victory in all three series?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, it's very special. When I look back at when I'm done racing, I'll probably look back at some of these tracks and be like, man, I love that track or I love this one. They always ask you in Q&As what your favorite track is and I always say Darlington because that's really where my love for racing came is just driving by Darlington every summer. My family and I, we'd go to Myrtle Beach so I would drive by that track. So that's always held the most meaning to me personally, like inside.

But there's certain tracks that I've had a lot of success on, and like the funny story, backstory with this place and kind of Pocono ropes into that as well, is when I was a kid, the iRacing schedule would always line up with the racetracks in the summer, and that's when I would have the most time to iRace was in the summer. So I would race this track a ton on iRacing, so I feel like that's why it's been a good track for me is because I have thousands of laps in my head of how the rhythm of this place goes, and even with repaves and everything, I feel like I just spent so much time as a 14-year-old, 13-year-old just racing on iRacing on Iowa and Pocono.

I feel like those tracks in the summer, it honestly lines up pretty good. Those are usually our fastest tracks.

Q. Track position seemed to be the moral of the story today. You were mired back in traffic after you did your last pit stop and a bunch of those cautions happened. What was going through your mind during that series of events?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, we knew, or I knew, and we talked about it after practice, there wasn't a ton of falloff in the tire. You could really kind of run for 30 laps, continue to run faster. There were several factors in that.

But I knew within the top two or three positions it was going to be a battle of track position.

But for us, we were kind of running, I think, around fifth to -- probably fifth, and we got that caution during the green flag cycle, kind of put us back to 15th, 16th, we got the Lucky Dog, which was good, and we got up to 10th. When we got to 10th, we were like, okay, we're kind of up against guys who are going to take tires, so we flipped the stage and got four tires.

It wasn't really a call for track position. It was really a call to have tires to be on offense for the third stage, and that was all going to plan, and that ended up being our last pit stop.

Kind of crazy that that was our last pit stop, but just the way the cautions fell, it kind of forced our hand to continue to stay out, and we just went with it.

Q. When Rudy was in here, he mentioned as cautions continued to fall he kind of got worried or had doubts with how the last month had gone that things weren't going to go your way. I'm wondering behind the wheel if you had any worries there in the closing portions.

WILLIAM BYRON: I had my doubts, probably when the last caution came out and I was kind of thinking under caution. I had my doubts.

But I think it was replaced with, okay, just do everything you can do and see how it works out. What gave me confidence was that we had checked the box on all the communication of how it was going to go. So we knew how the end of the race was going to play out. We knew, okay, that restart, get the lead, here's how it's going to play out: We're going to be a certain amount of laps short and we'll try to save that.

I don't know. It was pretty clear for me. I think I had my doubts, like I said, under caution, but I feel like our communication and strategy has just gotten way more clear over the last couple months with some of the things we've been through.

Q. You mentioned you were surprised that nobody was catching you while you were saving gas and it made it somewhat easier for you. When you get to that late portion, how hard is it for you to turn your brain and say I've got to back off and save to get to the end even though you want to get to the line first? How hard is it to change that momentum?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, that was a really good thing that I feel like Rudy said was just, hey, we want to get to the end of the race no matter what. That honestly took a little pressure off my shoulders of hey, if I lose the lead doing this, it is what it is.

Then I just realized I was not really -- the gap wasn't shrinking. It was actually growing. Then it was like, okay, this is odd, like is everyone else -- in my head, I'm like, is everyone else saving fuel or not, why is the gap growing. I just kept with it and kind of kept saving fuel, and it's amazing how much lap time we could make at the end as much fuel as we were saving.

Q. For this being your win here in the Cup Series, having all three in the trucks, Xfinity and Cup now, how much does that mean to you to accomplish that here in Iowa?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, I mean, I think it means a lot to my dad, honestly. He loves this place. I definitely think he'll enjoy kind of -- that was one of his encouragements towards me throughout the weekend. He's like, man, go for the trifecta.

I hadn't thought about it until now really, but it's definitely going to be special long-term. It's something I'll definitely look back on. In the moment, though, I think it's all about what we're doing this season and to get a second win on the year is really awesome for our confidence as a team and going forward.

Q. Were you satisfied with the overall racing when you came through the pack? Were you satisfied with the racing product overall?

WILLIAM BYRON: It was about what I expected. It was tough to pass. The tires are really on edge. I think the tire is hard, and it probably has to be because the surface is fast in the middle of the corner. You're just really -- on entry it's tough.

Yeah, it's on the edge, which is something -- I feel like that's something to be happy and proud of, too, is just how edgy the cars were to drive and being able to put a race together like that with minimal mistakes was pretty cool.

Q. With three races left before the playoffs, how much does this win really help the 24 team with the momentum going into the playoffs?

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, it's good. I think we've been fast, like, every weekend. I can't think of a race we've been slow.

It's just the results haven't come together, and it was starting to wear on us a little bit, I think, and starting to just create some kind of what's going to happen next. But this is going to kind of put the pendulum the other way, give us some momentum, and hopefully this momentum carries us for a long time.

Q. With the win, you are now 18 points ahead of Chase in the regular season and 45 ahead of Kyle. Do you guys even talk about it or do you have to sheepishly in your meetings be, like, who's ahead, or do you not even discuss it among yourselves?

WILLIAM BYRON: No, I don't think we discuss it. It's just three extremely strong teams. Really Alex is running great as well.

It's just strength on strength. Like we just continue to push each other. I feel like we always race one another really fair but hard. Like today we were all racing right around each other, and it was hard racing.

I just think we continue to push each other, and I think that's helping everybody. It's just preparing us for later down the stretch in the season.

Yeah, I respect my teammates a ton. I feel like we learn a lot from one another. We all have kind of our unique driving styles, but we have all kind of morphed into being able to drive this car really well. It's just cool to see us all compete, and hopefully us on the 24 can put three good weeks together on that end of things.

Right now and through the week, it's just going to be about getting over the hump of another win, and that momentum I think is going to help us gather points.