William Byron has had his heart broken plenty of times during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. That wasn’t the case on Sunday.
Despite running on fumes and his competitors taking chunks of his lead, Byron held on to score the win in Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway, even though he had to hold the lead and save gas over the race’s final green-flag run.
After fuel-mileage heartbreakers at Michigan and Indianapolis, the win was a welcome sight for the No. 24 team.
“How about that for some fuel mileage?” Byron told USA Network.
The win is Byron’s second of 2025, his first at Iowa and the 15th of his Cup Series career.
Neither polesitter Chase Briscoe, nor Stage 1 and 2 winner Brad Keselowski, nor defending Iowa winner Ryan Blaney could track down Byron in the closing laps, despite being able to push their cars to the limit.
Briscoe, Keselowski, Blaney and Ryan Preece rounded out the top five, with Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Joey Logano and Austin Dillon completing the top 10.
Other notable finishers included Austin Cindric in 12th, Josh Berry in 13th, John Hunter Nemechek in 15th, Kyle Busch in 20th and Kyle Larson in 28th.
Both Wallace and Berry mounted charges over the final green-flag run of the race after being mired deep in the pack before the Lap 287 restart.
Sunday’s race featured 12 caution flags, 10 of which were for cause. All 37 cars finished the race, with Joey Gase bringing up the rear of the field in 37th, 10 laps down.
Byron will leave Iowa as the Cup Series points leader by 18 points over Chase Elliott, who finished 14th on Sunday. Chris Buescher holds the 16th and final provisional playoff spot by 23 points over Preece with three races remaining in the regular season.
The 24th race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season will take place at Watkins Glen on Aug. 10, with coverage beginning at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
