William Byron was the third surprise winner through three races this season with his victory Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Byron joined Michael McDowell and Christopher Bell as unlikely winners to start this season.

Byron controlled most of the final two stages at Homestead to win for the second time in 111 Cup starts. His first one came at Daytona last August and landed him one of the final spots in the playoffs.

Tyler Reddick was second Sunday, nearly 3 seconds behind Byron. McDowell had his third straight top-10 finish. Chris Buescher ran up front for the first part of the race.

McDowell and Bell were first-time winners to open the season. This rare run already has tightened the playoff race less than a month into NASCAR’s long season. A victory earns an automatic berth, and it’s unusual to have multiple unique winners in a season.

Few could have predicted this trio would have put a squeeze on some of NASCAR’s top teams. Two-time series champion Kyle Busch currently sits below the top 16 in the standings, as do Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney and Aric Almirola – all playoff qualifiers a year ago.

Buescher dominated the race early, winning the opening stage (the second stage win of his career). The Roush Fenway Racing driver led five times for a total of 57 laps, but he started to fade “when as sunset neared. Buescher dropped from sixth to 23 after a restart early in the final stage.

Byron took over from there and left some of the biggest names playing catchup for the first time in years.

The series heads west for a two-week stretch, beginning with the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next Sunday. Joey Logano is the defending race winner.