NEWTON, Iowa – Hendrick Motorsports had a strong showing in Sunday’s inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway, putting three of its four cars inside the top 10.
William Byron finished second in the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 after working to chase down eventual winner Ryan Blaney. It was his fourth top-two result of 2024 and 10th top-10, tied for the most in the series.
“I feel like I just needed to turn the center just a hair better and still kind of maintain the long run,” Byron said. “Proud of the effort. It was a really good night, and I feel like we can learn from this and build from it to be a little bit better.”
After coming in third at Iowa, Chase Elliott took over the regular season points lead from teammate Kyle Larson. The driver of the No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet now has seven top-five performances this year and has finished inside the top 20 in all 17 races.
“That is good and nice to have some consistency across some different styles of racetracks, so I’m happy with all that,” Elliott said. “We need just a little bit to be where we need to be to lead laps and kind of set the pace. We will keep working at it.”
Following a disappointing 33rd-place effort in Saturday’s qualifying session, Alex Bowman charged to eighth in his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet. It was his 10th top-10 result of 2024 and sixth in the last eight races.
“Everyone came in with a good mindset,” Bowman said of his team. “We worked really hard today and came away with a good top 10.”
After starting from the pole position, leading five times for 80 laps and winning the second stage, Larson finished 34th following contact with Daniel Suarez on lap 220 that hobbled his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet with damage.
Hendrick Motorsports left the 0.875-mile Iowa Speedway with Elliott atop the regular season standings, followed by Larson in second, just eight points back. Byron moved up two spots to fourth while Bowman dropped one to 12th.
The NASCAR Cup Series will next visit New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, June 23, at 2:30 p.m. ET. It will be broadcast by USA Network, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.