William Byron clinches regular season championship over Chase Elliott at Richmond

For the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, William Byron is the regular season champion, with one race to go. Austin Dillon won the race, but Byron locked up his championship over his Hendrick teammate, Chase Elliott.

With a 68-point advantage going into Daytona, William Byron has clinched the Cup Series regular season championship. This is major for Byron as he will now receive 15 bonus playoff points, which will carry over to each round of the postseason.

The NASCAR Playoffs look a lot different tonight than they did before the race at Richmond. Dillon is in, Alex Bowman and Tyler Reddick will fight for the final two spots at Daytona, and hope a surprise winner doesn’t emerge. Byron now has a huge chunk of playoff points that could help get him to Phoenix.

Hendrick Motorsports came up one point short of the regular-season championship last season with Kyle Larson. This year, Byron wraps it all up with one race to spare.

Bring him the crown.@WilliamByron is the 2025 Regular Season Champion! pic.twitter.com/T7TAQoNR0r

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 17, 2025

William Byron hasn’t had the most wins this season. However, his year has been really good. The summer proved to be difficult for Byron, and he is still trying to shake off that slump going into the regular season finale and the start of the playoffs.

Byron has two wins this season, but has been right there on the verge of winning on multiple occasions. COTA, Darlington, Charlotte, and Michigan all could have gone differently if one or two things had happened differently.

P12 tonight was good enough to get the job done. It helped that Chase Elliott was wrecked out of the race as well. That gave Byron the space that he needed between the two drivers.

William Byron gets boost ahead of playoffs

The 15 playoff points that William Byron will get are major. That is the equivalent of winning three races. While some argue it isn’t enough points, it is still a sizeable amount of points. Enough to make up for a bad day or two in the playoffs.

The regular season championship ended up being a three-way fight between Hendrick teammates. After Indianapolis, we had a four-way battle that included Byron, Elliott, Kyle Larson, and Denny Hamlin. Only 20 points separated the drivers. Byron pulled away enough in the next few races to wrap up the championship with a race to go.

The win at Iowa and top-five at Watkins Glen really separated Byron from the other drivers. When it came down to it, Byron was more consistent in the last few races of the regular season. He pulled away from the other drivers with relative ease these last few weeks.

William Byron is the regular-season champion. Will he end up raising the Bill France Cup in Phoenix later this year?