After having a very dismal first season with Roush Fenway Racing in 2015 in the No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion with only 2 top-ten finishes and finishing 29th in the series standings, Bayne stepped up in 2016 with new crew chief Matt Puccia and spotter Roman Pemberton. Puccia took over the crew chief roles after a hard season with former driver Greg Biffle in 2015, and appeared to be heading to the NASCAR Xfinity Series to work with Bubba Wallace, however, Osborne was moved to Front Row Motorsports when Chris Buescher moved in under an alliance.
Bayne posted his first top-five and top-ten finish of the season in his home state of Tennessee at Bristol Motor Speedway when he finished in fifth place in the Spring event at the half-mile track, two weeks later Bayne finished 10th at Talladega. As it appeared the team was on its way to having found some speed in its cars through the early part of the season. Bayne went on a stretch of finishing in the top-ten in 3 out of five events from Bristol through Dover in June.
The team's strongest showing of the season came in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona. Bayne looked to have himself right in line to make a move to win the event but would have to settle for third place in the event. The team's last top-ten finish of the season came on the road course at Watkins Glen in a special paint scheme for AdvoCare's new Blue Raspberry Spark flavor. Bayne would finish 9th in the event after finishing 5th the day before in the Xfinity Series race.
The last portion of the season was a struggle for Bayne and his crew as they did not score a top-ten finish for the final 13 events of the season and finished 22nd in the final points standings. Bayne, however, improved his numbers solidly from first season with Roush Fenway Racing. He had a better average start 20.4 compared to 27.9 in 2015. His average finish was 19.9 compared to 25.8 in 2015, and he led 34 laps compared to 0 the year before. Bayne also scored 21 lead lap finishes compared to 13 the year before.
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