CONCORD, N.C. – William Byron notched his third straight top-two finish to close out the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs Round of 12 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL. Byron was already locked into the Round of 8 and Kyle Larson will join him on the driver’s side of the playoffs. The No. 9 team is advancing to the next round of the owner playoffs with the Nos. 5 and 24 teams also moving to the Round of 8.
Byron’s second-place finish at the Charlotte ROVAL capped off a three-race round that saw him win at Texas Motor Speedway, finish second at Talladega Superspeedway and earn a runner-up result at Charlotte. Starting 14th, the No. 24 team used pit strategy to work themselves into the top 10 for the start of the second stage. Crew chief Rudy Fugle deployed the same plan to earn a top-five spot for the start of the final stage.
Over the course of the final 56 laps, the driver of the No. 24 Z HP Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 ran in the top five and took over second just after the lap 100 restart. He got close to eventual race winner AJ Allmendinger in the final laps, but couldn’t quite reel him in. Byron will enter the Round of 8 as the leader in the driver standings (4,041) in the playoffs. He is tied for the series lead in top-five finishes (13) and leads in top-10s (18). Sunday's race also marked the 100th Cup Series start for Fugle.
"It's been a great year for the No. 24 HP Chevy team and we’ve been great on all the road courses," Byron said. "I had that one shot with probably eight laps to go. AJ (Allmendinger) just did a good job blocking the chicane there. He didn’t miss his marks and it was too early to make a dive bomb to him.
"Just proud of the whole team. We definitely improved a lot as the race went on. It was good to have Z by HP on the car – a new partner for us, so that was really fun. Just good momentum. We’ve got to keep it rolling. I’d like to finish one-two-two in the next round, too. That would be ideal, but we just have to keep performing like this and we’ll be where we want to be."
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Alex Bowman kept his top-10 Charlotte ROVAL streak going with an eighth-place result in the No. 48 Ally Chevy. Bowman now has five top-10 finishes in as many starts at the ROVAL and an average finish of 6.40 at the 2.32-mile road course. The 30-year-old driver started the 109-lap event from the 16th position. Crew chief Blake Harris opted for track position over stage points in the opening two segments and short-pitted the stages. That strategy paid off for his driver as he restarted in the top 10 for the final 56 laps and Bowman maintained that spot over the last stage of the race. This marked Bowman’s third top-10 finish on a road course this season (third at Circuit of The Americas and fifth at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course).
"Blake (Harris) and I got our first shot at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL and we feel like we learned a lot," Bowman said. "This track is one I have had a lot of good finishes at. To walk away with another top 10 and feel like we know what we need for next time, gives us a lot of confidence. We have a couple of races left to continue to learn and prepare for next season."
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Chase Elliott’s ninth-place finish was his seventh top-10 in his last eight races. The 27-year-old driver took the starting grid from the eighth position in the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. He had good pace in the opening stage and was able to score stage points (four) after pitting in the closing laps. Elliott passed Christopher Bell for the lead on lap 36 and the Dawsonville, Georgia, native led the rest of the stage for his second stage victory of the season. Those 15 laps led put Elliott over 5,000 circuits out front in his Cup Series career.
Getting the stage win was not the initial plan as Elliott was heading to pit road but veered away from heading down for service when the caution came out to end the stage under yellow. In the final stage, he overcame a flat tire on the right rear and drove up from 35th to the top 10. As a result of Elliott’s finish, the No. 9 team is advancing to the next round of the owner playoffs. They will be eighth in the standings at 4,002 points.
"I’m really proud of the effort our NAPA team gave today," Elliott said. "We had a Chevrolet capable of winning, but it’s just so hard to get back to the front when you lose track position here. To be able to walk away with a top-10 finish and get the team into the next round of the owner playoffs is a big deal."
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After an incident in practice, Larson had to go to a backup car and started from 36th in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy. It was a grind-it-out sort of day for the 31-year-old driver. In the opening stage, he drove up to 21st before crew chief Cliff Daniels called his driver down for service. That move set up Larson to start stage two from 17th and he got into the top five to earn six valuable stage points. The tradeoff with earning stage points was that it put the No. 5 in the back of the pack in the 31st position for the restart to the final stage. He quickly worked up into the top 15 and held a top-10 position with 19 laps to go. The 2021 Cup Series narrowly avoided an incident on lap 88 and was able to finish 13th. That result got Larson into the Round of 8 and also moved the No. 5 team through on the owner’s side of things. He starts the next round fourth in the standings at 4,024 points.
"It was a stressful weekend, but the No. 5 team and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports did a great job working hard on this backup car late last night," Larson said. "I felt like our car was really good today. We were just pretty conservative there at times. I just didn’t want to make a mistake like I did last year and take ourselves completely out of it. It was just stressful there the final stage, but we were able to get in, which was the goal."
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Larson’s advancement into the Round of 8 marks the fourth straight year that Hendrick Motorsports has had two drivers reach that round of the playoffs. This is Larson’s third Round of 8 appearance in his Cup Series career and second with the Rick Hendrick-owned organization. For Byron, this is the second time and second consecutive year that the 25-year-old driver has reached the Round of 8.
In the last 10 races of 2023, the organization has had at least one driver finish in the top five. This is the longest such streak in the series this season. Those top fives came at Michigan International Speedway (Larson), the Indianapolis Road Course (Elliott and Bowman), Watkins Glen International (Byron), Daytona International Speedway (Elliott), Darlington Raceway (Larson and Byron), Kansas Speedway (Larson), Bristol Motor Speedway (Larson), Texas (Byron) and Talladega (Byron) and the Charlotte ROVAL (Byron).
Next up for the Cup Series is the Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, Oct. 15, at 2:30 p.m. ET. Coverage of the race will be on NBC, NBC Sports App, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90). Hendrick Motorsports has eight wins at the 1.5-mile track. Earlier this year, Byron’s spring victory highlighted a one-two-three finish for the organization at the Nevada venue.