BYRON OUT TO VALIDATE HIS START

Back-to-back wins haven’t stopped William Byron from believing he and his Hendrick Motorsports team have a lot to prove in today’s NASCAR stop in Atlanta.

In fact, Byron said Saturday, there’s even more on the line. Drivers of the Hendrick Chevrolets want to show the strong start to the season is not the result of illegally manipulating NASCAR’S rules.

NASCAR slammed Hendrick Motorsports on Wednesday with the largest combined fine on one team in series history for allegedly modifying louvers, which direct air through the hoods of cars. The penalty included a combined $400,000 in fines — $100,000 to each of its four crew chiefs — plus four-race suspensions for the crew chiefs — Byron’s, Kyle Larson’s and Alex Bowman’s included.

Those suspensions begin with today’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga. Hendrick is appealing the penalties, which also affected the drivers by losing 100 regular-season points and 10 playoffs points.

Asked if the penalties provide more motivation for the team this week, Byron said: “Absolutely. I really get excited about coming to the race track right now.

“If anything it just shows that we’re not there yet and we have more to prove and we have more to accomplish. That’s a dangerous thing, right?”

Byron qualified 11th on Saturday, while Ford drivers, led by Joey Logano, took the top eight spots. Larson qualified ninth and Bowman was 15th.

Byron won last year’s spring race in Atlanta while Hendrick teammate and home-state favorite Chase Elliott was the winner in July. Josh Berry, 21st in qualifying on Saturday, is the fill-in driver while Elliott recovers from a broken tibia suffered while snowboarding in Colorado last month.

Byron took advantage of a restart to beat Larson at Phoenix Raceway last week, following his win one week earlier at Las Vegas.

Hill dominating Xfinity

Austin Hill continued his dominant start to the NASCAR Xfinity season, holding off Daniel Hemric at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday night for his third win in five races.

Hill overcome a recordsetting day of cautions in doubleheader Xfinity and truck series races. There were 11 cautions, the most for an Xfinity race in Atlanta.

Hill previously collected Xfinity wins at Daytona on Feb. 18 to open the season and at Las Vegas on March 4. Hill, a native of Winston, Ga., added a home-track win to his strong start.

Perez on F1 pole

Sergio Perez stepped up for Red Bull to ensure the team started from the pole at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after a mechanical issue sidelined two-time defending world champion

Max Verstappen.

Verstappen was fastest in all three practice sessions at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but his qualifying effort was cut short Saturday when he radioed “I have a problem. Engine, engine problem,” during the second session. The Dutchman drove to the pits, where a driveshaft issue was discovered, and Verstappen’s qualifying effort was over.

It left Perez as the lone Red Bull representative in the final round of qualifying and he went on to win pole for the second consecutive year — the only two poles of his career.

“Max has been really strong the whole weekend, so hopefully we can have both cars up there,” Perez said. “You never know with these cars, reliability issues can hit you at any time.”

Verstappen will start 15th in today’s race.

Charles Leclerc qualified second for Ferrari but will drop 10 positions at the start of the race because of a grid penalty for exceeding the allotted electronics control unit on the car’s engine in the season-opening race.