William Byron reflects on matching Jeff Gordon milestone with win at COTA

What William Byron has done over the last three seasons hasn’t been done since a guy named Jeff Gordon was in the 24 car. The NASCAR driver is putting up great stats, getting wins, and just matched Gordon in a major milestone.

Since the Next Gen car debuted, William Byron has been the winningest driver in the Cup Series. 10 wins already since the start of 2022. On top of that, Byron has been the first driver to multiple wins each of the last three seasons now.

It took him eight races into 2022 to get to two wins (Atlanta-1, Martinsville-1). Last season, he won race three and four of the season (Las Vegas-1, Phoenix-1) in back-to-back trips to Victory Lane. This season, it took him just six races to win two races (Daytona 500, COTA).

The last driver to be the first to reach multiple wins three seasons in a row – Jeff Gordon, 1997-1999.

“That’s a really cool stat and I think Rudy and I talked about that stat, actually a few weeks ago, the guy, Trey Ryan on Twitter who does a great job with the stats, he posted that,” Byron said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I thought that was pretty neat and I think it just shows how special our race team is and the cohesive unit we’ve had over the last three years to do that. Honestly, just the preparation in the offseason to be able to go into a new year and be as focused as we were before if not more.

“So, really I don’t feel like we allowed ourselves to get into a slump after Phoenix and think about what could have been, we just focused on what is the next task at hand and how can we come out of the gates strong. So, I think that we have a lot to prove going into this year just that we could maintain the level that we were in the past and there’s still a lot to do. I feel like it’s a great start but there’s a whole summer and fall ahead of us and we just have to keep the gas down.”