Hendrick extends Byron’s contract

CONCORD, N.C. — William Byron has agreed to a three-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports that will keep him in the No. 24 Chevrolet through NASCAR’s 2025 season. Byron’s previous contract ran through the end of this season.

The 24-year-old driver has two Cup Series wins already this year and four in his career, and he made the playoffs for the third consecutive year in 2021, when he posted 20 top-10 finishes. Hendrick signed Byron in August 2016, and after winning four races and the season title in the second-tier Xfinity Series in 2017, he advanced to the Cup Series and was the top rookie in 2018.

Byron is the only Cup Series driver other than Jeff Gordon — the fourtime season champion who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019 — to win for Hendrick in the No. 24 Chevrolet. In a release announcing the extension, team owner Rick Hendrick said Byron “is on an amazing trajectory, and I believe he’s only just begun to scratch the surface of his potential.”

“William is a tremendous driver and a truly exceptional young man,” Hendrick said. “As impressed as I am by his innate ability inside a race car, I admire his character and maturity even more.”

Hendrick’s four-car stable also includes drivers Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.

After Jimmie Johnson won his record-tying seventh Cup Series crown in 2016 while driving for Hendrick, the organization was denied a title the next three seasons but now has back-to-back champions in Chase Elliott (2020) and Kyle Larson (2021).

In Thursday’s release, Byron said he knows the No. 24 team “will contend for championships.”