William Byron’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, opened up on their expletive-filled radio exchange at Echopark Speedway. Fugle assured that the dispute wouldn’t cause a wedge in their relationship.
Byron posted a middling 16th-place finish in Atlanta. He struggled throughout the rain-affected race and vented over the radio, calling his car ‘junk’ and ‘terrible’.
Fugle grew tired of the complaints and ordered Byron to drive through the ‘tight offset’. Byron responded with a blunt ‘you got it’ and that was the end of their squabble.
The interaction, however, made headlines and signalled discord between the driver-crew chief pairing. Fugle addressed the issue in a recent interview with SiriusXM.
“It’s passion coming out and you know from his end,” he said, “In my end, I’m trying to deal with a frustrating aspect of not getting the car where we want to. In general we’re mad at the car. We’re not acting the way we think it should and not each other and our relationship’s way too strong to let a little bit of back and forth banter and and even yelling at each other, fighting, whatever it is. All that stuff is healthy. If you just hold all that in and don’t get any of that out, that’s not good.”
“So now I do wish I had chosen some better words that we’re not talking about it today and everybody thinks that something’s wrong. But him and I are the only things that matter for this relationship and and we’re good and we always will be good,” Fugle added.
William Byron is still searching for his maiden win this season. After 20 starts, the Hendrick Motorsports driver ranks 12th with 520 points and three DNFs to his name, a far cry from his top-3 standing in the 2025 regular season.
Byron’s best finish so far remains a pair of podium finishes at Las Vegas and Pocono. Meanwhile, his HMS teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson rank fifth and sixth, respectively. Elliott is also the only HMS driver with multiple wins this season.
William Byron struggles with new Chevrolet body amid Chase fight
Chevrolet introduced a new body for its customer teams in 2026. The Camaro ZL1 has placed multiple teams on the back foot while Toyotas reign at the top. Notably, three of the top-5 drivers are Toyota-backed.
Championship-winning teams like HMS aren’t used to falling behind their competition. William Byron, who has always remained an ace driver for the team, finds himself struggling for pace.
With six races left in the regular season, Byron needs to reclaim past glory and clinch a Chase spot. He currently battles the likes of Bubba Wallace and Austin Cindric over the Chase bubble, and can’t afford any more DNFs to his record.
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