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Dale Earnhardt Jr. baffled by awful strategy of William Byron team at Darlington

Brian Jones Profile Picby:Brian Jones•04/21/25•

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William Byron (1)
Apr 6, 2025; Darlington, South Carolina, USA; NASCAR Cup Series driver William Byron (24) drives into turn two during the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway. Mandatory Credit: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t understand the strategy of William Byron and the No. 24 team during the Darlington race earlier this month. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt broke down how Byron lost the race after leading for 243 laps.

“William is leading the race, he’s got a pretty comfortable lead over most of the field,” Earnhardt said. …”William and his team are going to do some math to understand that as the other teams short pit or come to pit road first, he knows, ‘Okay, I can be out there X amount of laps before I need to pit and come back out on pit road still in front of these guys.’

“Not only is that happening on the pit box, there’s a war room back in Charlotte, Hendrick Motorsports, where there’s a couple of dudes sitting around, six-12 people and engineers, all kinds of people with laptops and big screens and calculating all of this information double-checking, verifying and sending that back to Rudy [Fugle] and his team on the pit box. …There was not a lack of information and it wasn’t a guess, Rudy had all of the details.” Dale Earnhardt later added that Byron’s car “lost a little pace” as the race went on but was “still pretty dominant.”

William Byron reacts to losing Darlington race

When the race was all said and done, William Byron finished fourth and Denny Hamlin won the Darlington race. Hamlin took the lead after a green flag pit stop cycle with 50 laps remaining.

“It sucks,” Byron said after the race, per NASCAR.com. “It’ll sting to be this close, but at the same time, it’s like, man, really proud of that effort by our whole team. It shows what we’re made of and, hopefully, a lot more of that to come.”

“It’s a good track for us,” Fugle said. “We’re excited about coming here. You know, it’s good to showcase how good of a car it is, and it stinks to not win. I think we take it as a positive. It sucks we did not win, but a great car. We’re doing all the right things and preparations, right? Bristol has been tough for us. So, probably different goals to start with there. Got to be more in the ballpark with a better balance and see where we end up.”