AUSTIN, Texas — William Byron won the season-opening Daytona 500 last month with an agonizing final lap under a caution flag.
He took the checkered flag on Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas at full throttle.
Bryon started from pole position and delivered a dominant drive in the first road course race of the season for NASCAR's top-tier Cup Series. The Hendrick Motorsports driver led 42 of 68 laps and built the big lead he needed to hold off a hard-charging run from Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell over the final two laps.
Bell shaved nearly three seconds off Byron's lead to create some late drama before Byron slammed the door over the final corners.
"I was trying to not make mistakes," Byron said. "I knew that last lap, he was going to be pushing hard."
Even when he was building the lead, Byron said he knew the victory would be tight at the end: "Everyone is too good, and that car (was) too close."
A self-taught racer who used computer equipment to hone his skills, Byron earned Cup Series career win No. 12 and his second on a road course. He also became the first driver with two Cup Series wins in 2024, with Daniel Suárez (Feb. 25 at Atlanta), Kyle Larson (March 3 at Las Vegas), Bell (March 10 at Phoenix) and Denny Hamlin (March 17 at Bristol) having secured first-place finishes since Byron's Daytona triumph on Feb. 19.
The Circuit of the Americas, a track built for Formula One, has been the first road course for NASCAR four seasons in a row. And unlike the crash-filled, triple-overtime race of 2023, Sunday's race was mostly free of such trouble as Byron made easy work of the field.
Byron led 23 laps of the first two stages, but he found himself quickly dropped to third at the start of the final stage as Ross Chastain, who won at COTA in 2022, jumped to the front.
Byron fought back to pass him with 25 laps to go and both cars pitted on the same lap. Chastain then got hung up in traffic on the reentry and fell several cars behind.
That gave Byron the chance to open the gap he needed to keep Bell behind him at the end. Ty Gibbs, the 21-year-old grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs, finished third after getting passed by JGR teammate Bell with three laps to go.
"Another lap, I would have gotten there for sure," Bell said. "Passing (Byron) would have been difficult. I needed him to make a mistake, and he didn't make a mistake."
Hendrick's Alex Bowman was fourth, while Tyler Reddick was fifth in a 23XI Racing Toyota and the next two places went to Chevy drivers, AJ Allmendinger for Kaulig Racing and Chastain for Trackhouse Racing.
Ford drivers have yet to win this season — Chevy has two wins and Toyota the other two — and did not expect big results on the road course. They delivered on the low expectations as Chris Buescher was the top Ford driver in eighth.
The course had few track limits, but the ones enforced by race officials brought a hefty penalty for drivers who got caught.
Hendrick's Chase Elliott, who won at COTA in 2021 and leads active Cup Series drivers with seven road course wins, was running sixth early in the final stage before driving out of bounds in the S-curve section of the track. That forced him do to a pit lane drive-thru and took him out of contention when he rejoined in 16th.
Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, hasn't won since a playoff victory at Talladega Superspeedway in October 2022.
The Circuit of the Americas is the only track to host both NASCAR and F1, and all signs point to the stock cars coming back next year. Track president Bobby Epstein said this past week he has a deal for NASCAR to return in 2025, but provided no details. Marcus Smith, president of Speedway Motorsports, which runs the event and rents the track for the week, said he also plans a return.
"We love bringing NASCAR to Austin," Smith said. "Nothing is final until the official NASCAR schedule comes out, but we're planning for another big event in Austin at COTA in 2025."
The series is on a short track for the third time in four weeks next Sunday night, this time at Virginia's Richmond Raceway.
AP photo by Darren Abate / Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron is picked up by crew member Landon Walker in celebration of his NASCAR Cup Series win Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.IndyCar: Palou wins the weekend
THERMAL, Calif. — Alex Palou was a fitting winner Sunday in a race meant for all-stars.
Palou, who earned his second IndyCar Series championship in three seasons last year, won the Thermal $1 Million Challenge in a total rout.
Palou dominated the three-day weekend, too, as he was among the fastest drivers in practice sessions and led every lap of anything that counted while winning his qualifying group, his heat race and all 20 laps of IndyCar's first nonpoints race since 2008.
The race at the members-only Thermal Club was for 12 drivers who earned their way into the main event through a pair of heat races earlier Sunday. But Scott Dixon, Will Power, Pato O'Ward and some of IndyCar's top names didn't advance out of the heats, and the "A Main" was a mix of competition levels.
Palou, who was one of three Chip Ganassi Racing drivers to make the main event, was never challenged.
"He made it look like a Sunday drive out there. He didn't even break a sweat," Ganassi said.
Although the race was billed as a $1 million event, Palou's payout was actually only $500,000 because the Thermal members shied away from participating in the event with a matching buy-in. Club members instead were randomly paired with teams for an embedded weekend experience with an IndyCar organization.
Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske finished second, Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing was third, Colton Herta of Andretti Global was fourth and Marcus Armstrong of Ganassi was fifth as the bulk of the purse payout went to the top five. The remaining 22 entrants were paid $23,000 for participating.
Palou, who is embroiled in a nearly $30 million breach of contract lawsuit with McLaren, said he would use his winnings on his newborn daughter.
"I need to buy a lot of diapers and pajamas, so probably I will do that," said the 26-year-old Spaniard, who insisted his time at the private club was work and not play this weekend.
"It's never easy," he said. "It's always tough to try and manage the tires. Am I doing too much? Am I not doing enough?"
Herta said the event was "feast or famine" for the drivers, who could race hard for the top-five prize money or risk expensive crash damage to the team. Herta said his car "ate" on Sunday and that's why he raced former teammate Alexander Rossi so hard, while McLaughlin was goaded into buying Team Penske beers when they informed him a runner-up finish was worth $350,000 — a full $100,000 more than McLaughlin believed.
It wasn't all rosy. Romain Grosjean was crashed on the opening lap of the first heat race and fumed about the cost of the damage for his small team, Juncos Hollinger Racing.
"I mean, who is going to pay for the damage? We come here with no points on the line and do nothing wrong, and the car is completely smashed," Grosjean said after walking from his crashed car along the private, members-only road course back to pit road. "It's not what I signed (up for) with IndyCar."
The event was meant to be different in every aspect, starting with the format. The dozen all-stars advanced into the "A Main" by finishing in the top six of one of two heat races. The heat races were 10 laps, or 20 minutes, whichever came first.
It went awry moments after the first heat began on the 17-turn, 3.067-mile raceway when Dixon ran into the back of Grosjean, causing Grosjean to spin in a multicar crash. Dixon was given an avoidable contact penalty as Grosjean, who moved to IndyCar from Formula 1 ahead of the 2021 season, seethed.
The second heat was uneventful. And so was the race, which was two 10-lap segments with a 20-minute break — the only time Palou was not out front.
IndyCar at the break disqualified Pietro Fittipaldi in a disastrous sequence for Rahal Letterman Lanigan, which joined Ganassi as the only teams to get three drivers into the main event.
Graham Rahal already had a mechanical problem that dropped him down a lap, leading the team to withdraw rather than take a penalty or risk causing expensive damage to the car.
RLL teammate Christian Lundgaard, running seventh at the break, needed "emergency service" during the intermission and was forced to drop out of the field when the race resumed.
IndyCar was in action for the first time since the March 10 season opener in St. Petersburg, Florida. The next points race is April 21 in Long Beach, California.
The Desert Sun photo by Andy Abeyta via AP / Chip Ganassi Racing driver Alex Palou, right, leads the pack through the S-curves in the first few laps and into the 14th turn during IndyCar's Thermal $1 Million Challenge on Sunday.F1: Sainz first after Verstappen's early exit
MELBOURNE, Australia — Ferrari's Carlos Sainz ended Red Bull's F1 winning streak Sunday, when the 29-year-old Spaniard took advantage of Max Verstappen's early exit to win the Australian Grand Prix just two weeks after missing the previous race in Saudi Arabia due to an emergency appendectomy.
Sainz, who started on the front row alongside Verstappen, kept his place into turn one, but he passed the Red Bull driver on the ninth turn of the second lap for the lead. He took control after his rival retired two laps later with a fiery mechanical failure.
Verstappen had won the first two F1 races of the season in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and was on a nine-race winning streak.
Sainz finished ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc for Ferrari's first 1-2 result since the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, with McLaren's Lando Norris third for his first podium finish at Albert Park. His teammate, Australian Oscar Piastri, was fourth.
Sainz, who will be replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari starting in 2025, was thrilled to get his third career win against the odds, and his first since last year's Singapore Grand Prix.
"I felt really good out there," he said. "Of course, a bit stiff, especially physically. It wasn't the easiest, but I was lucky that I was more or less on my own so I could just manage my pace, manage the tires, manage everything.
"Life sometimes is crazy, you know. What happened at the beginning of the year, then the podium in Bahrain, then appendix, the comeback, the win, it's a roller coaster. But I loved it."
Leclerc, on the podium for the second straight race, was encouraged by Ferrari's pace and its ability to take the fight to rival Red Bull during its period of dominance.
"We knew that pole position and the race win was possible because we had very good tire degradation, very good pace," he said. "That is a very encouraging sign. However, if you look at the first three races, two out of the first three races, they (Red Bull) had the upper hand in the race, so we still have a lot of work to do."
Norris said it wasn't a surprise that he was able to earn his first podium since Brazil last year.
"I think when you take a Red Bull out of it, I would say no," he said. "I think our pace has been good all weekend. We put things together very nicely yesterday. We showed good long run, high-fuel pace on Friday, so I wouldn't have said we had no chance."
Sunday's event finished under the virtual safety car, ensuring there was no racing for most of the final lap, after Mercedes driver George Russell crashed on turn seven. Red Bull's Sergio Pérez closed out the top five, making up just one place from where he started in sixth — with that spot after he was handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Nico Hülkenberg in qualifying.
Two-time F1 Fernando Alonso finished sixth on the road, but he fell to eighth after being given a 20-second time penalty and three penalty points on his license for "potentially dangerous" driving in battling Russell on the final lap.
Alonso lifted off the throttle slightly more than 100 meters earlier than he had done going into turn six during the race, while Russell behind him lost control and crashed at the exit of the corner.
Russell's teammate Lewis Hamilton also didn't finish after a lap 17 engine failure for Mercedes' first double nonfinish since the 2021 Azerbaijan GP, ending its record of reliability.
Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda earned RB, the team formerly known as AlphaTauri, its first points of the season; he got six points for seventh, having been elevated by Alonso's penalty.
American team Haas earned its first double points finish since the 2022 Austrian GP, with Hülkenberg and teammate Kevin Magnussen ninth and 10th, respectively.
Verstappen's lead in the drivers' standings has been reduced from 15 points to four, with Leclerc in second place. Verstappen has 51 points and Leclerc 47.
Sunday was his first race retirement since 2022, also at the Australian GP. Minutes after his race ended early, the three-time reigning F1 champ was seen on TV coverage in a heated discussion with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
My right rear brake basically stuck on from when the lights went off," Verstappen said. "The temperatures (in the car) just kept on increasing until the point that it caught fire. They could see what was going on, but they don't know what caused it."
"We had a lot of good races in a row. I knew that the day would come when you end up having a retirement, and unfortunately that day was today."
Verstappen's 19 wins in 2023 set F1's single-season record.
"It's a shame as the car felt really good in the laps to the grid, but you cannot control these issues and these things happen," Verstappen said. "Of course, I am disappointed we didn't finish the race as we had a good shot at winning and the car has been improving throughout the weekend."