William Byron breaks down his runner-up day after coming up just short of becoming the first Cup Series winner at Iowa.
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00:00Well, the first winner at Iowa in the cup series was almost William Byron.
00:05You were coming there at the end.
00:06How many more laps did you need?
00:07Yeah, we were pretty even.
00:09He was on two tires.
00:10I think I had just a little bit fresher tire and was able to work the bottom through lap
00:14traffic okay.
00:15I felt like I was making marginal gains through one and two.
00:19My tires would get hot down there and I would start sliding the rears around a little bit
00:24on entry.
00:25Just really good effort by our team.
00:28We struggled on Friday and then had a really good qualifying effort and then had a bad
00:33restart in the middle of the race.
00:34That was terrible.
00:35Just didn't get the tires cleaned off and it was really weird tonight with a repave
00:39and it seemed like the tires would take a lap or two to go.
00:42Once we figured that out, we had some better restarts, but just proud of this team.
00:47We definitely need to put together some consistent runs and this is a good start and would love
00:52to be winning tonight, but Ryan and those guys were really good, so congrats to them.
00:57There were a lot of unknowns coming in, William, and then you talked about some weirdness.
01:01How many challenges were there out there tonight?
01:03In the end, tire failure was not one of them, but were you being careful?
01:07No, I mean, you just kind of run it for all it's got, but you try to stay conscious of
01:12it.
01:13We never had tire issues all weekend.
01:15Just the restarts with scuffed tires or new tires sliding around for a lap and it's pretty
01:20hairy on the restarts, just trying to get grip in the car, so just going from here,
01:29trying to have a good race at New Hampshire.
01:31That's been a tough one.
01:32It's the best finish for you since martinsville in April.
01:35I know it's been a long time coming.
01:36You guys have been working at it.
01:38We've been working hard.
01:39I think we've had speed for most of the weeks, maybe besides gateway.
01:42Wasn't our best, but last week could have easily been up in front and continuing for
01:46a win, but this is a really good start to put the whole race together and even through
01:50some adversity, so really proud of that.
01:52Strong run tonight for William.