​Motorsport photoThe first race of the Chase is officially in the books, with Christopher Bell taking the checkered flag at Darlington on Saturday.The win was a huge boon for Bell’s championship chances, bumping him up to second in the points standings where he trails Denny Hamlin by just 12 points.On the other side of the outcome spectrum was William Byron, who was forced to bring his car in early due to engine trouble.Over the radio, Byron was unsure what exactly had gone wrong with his car as he came into pit road.Things just went from bad to worse for @WilliamByron. https://t.co/K22ecHGBSzpic.twitter.com/Hy5Ti08Dsl— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 7, 2026 The No. 24 would not come back out on the race track.Once his day was officially over, Byron still seemed stumped as to what exactly went wrong with his car.”I’ve never had that happen, but I felt like I had a flat left through one and two, so I slowed down quite a bit, and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll just, I’ll pit and try to be early on the cycle,’ he said.”I mean, you’re already gonna have issues at that point, but I don’t know, it’s super hot, so I don’t know if I was blowing up in that process and then I got oil on my tire or what. Not a lot of answers right now, but definitely unfortunate.”Byron’s poor finish pushed him all the way down to 16th in the Chase standings, and put him more than 100 points behind Hamlin at the top of the leaderboard.Every race in the Chase matters, but Byron’s day at Darlington shows just how damaging a single race can be to a driver’s championship chances.Watch: Bell pounces late to open Chase with winTo read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website.