Kevin Harvick left confused about William Byron as best driver despite regular season title

William Byron emerged as the regular season champion following Richmond with one race to spare ahead of the playoffs. In 2025, Byron has had two wins to his name, the Daytona 500 and Iowa.

Besides that, he also finished inside the top 10 on four occasions and seven times inside the top 5.

During a recent episode of the Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick was asked whether he believes William Byron and the #24 team have been the best in the first 26 races.

"When I look at it, William Byron has won two races, and when I think of his season as a whole, it's been pretty up and down, but I think that they've performed pretty well. I think a lot of that, I think Next Gen racing in general is more inconsistent than what we've been used to in the past. And I think you're going to have more DNFs, you're going to have more off weeks. And how do you minimize those off weeks? But as I look at this list, I can't pick anybody out that's had a better regular season. I think that Kyle Larson started off like a ball of fire," Kevin Harvick described. [17:20]

He claimed that after the Indy 500, Larson didn't light the Cup races on fire despite having a car capable of leading laps. At Richmond, the #5 driver finished in 6th place. Besides that, Larson has 3 wins to his name and eight finishes inside the top 5.

"I don't really know where they are as far as Kyle Larson, but I could I could argue maybe for for the #5. But I think that William Byron and Denny Hamlin have probably been the best two cars," Harvick further added.

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Kevin Harvick points to the peculiar aspect of William Byron winning the regular season title

Talking about what stood out to him about William Byron winning the regular season championship, Kevin Harvick pointed to his points tally. Heading into Daytona, Byron has 241 stage points.

The drivers in second and third, Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin, have 141 and 176, respectively. However, the driver with the most stage points after Byron is Ryan Blaney with 217 points.

"It's a pretty good gap after those guys from a stage point. So, those guys have scored a lot of stage points," Harvick said. [18:50]

He claimed that when a driver scores more stage points, they're running up front more. And when a driver runs up front more, it shows they have more speed in their car. With that said, Kevin Harvick emphasized on 'a lot of damn stage points' which William Byron scored on his way to the regular season title.