William Byron’s Crew Is “Embarrassed” Over Poor Darlington Performance

Hendrick Motorsports star driver William Byron and his crew shared thoughts on the huge disappointment at Darlington.

William Byron’s Crew Is “Embarrassed” Over Poor Darlington Performance

William Byron (Via IMAGO)

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Hendrick Motorsports star driver William Byron came into the 2025 playoff opener at Darlington Raceway with high hopes, after having the most momentum owing to his regular season championship victory. But he flew back home, with a disappointing P21 finish while the Toyota garage took total advantage of the opportunity.

Chase Briscoe secured a dominant finish, while Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin secured solid points. William Byron’s crew chief Rudy Fugle was beyond disappointed over the result and on team radio, admitted to his driver they are embarrassed over the performance, as nothing turned out as expected for them.

Their execution on and off the track, which is paramount to having a strong post-season, was bad compared to the standard they have set for themselves. They weren’t comfortable enough the whole race, and unless they improve their performance as soon as the next week at Gateway, there will be more such terrible outings.

Rudy Fugle: We’re embarrassed. We’ve got to execute a lot better all around. Nothing comfortable. We didn’t do shit today. We’ve got to improve and get better and race our ass off every week or it’s going to be a long offseason.

William Byron: Yeah, 10-4… That was terrible.

William Byron team radio (Via @jeffgluck/X).

It wasn’t just the No:24 Chevy team that was had a poor day on the track. All three of his HMS teammates had a bad day in the office. Chase Elliott finished P17, ahead of Kyle Larson, who scored P19. No:48 Chevy driver Alex Bowman who finished the race P31 is the was the worst performing driver from Rick Hendrick’s garage.

William Byron admitted they were struggling the whole day at Darlington

On his post-race media interaction, the star driver William Byron explained how much he struggled the whole night during the Southern 500. He didn’t have both the long run and short run speed. If not for the pit-cycles helping them to advance some positions, they would have scored a worst finish.

William Byron
William Byron (Via IMAGO)

We just struggled all night. I thought the short run was a struggle. I was hoping we’d be able to pay on the backend and have some long run pace, but we would just fall off a cliff. A lot of the time, the pit cycles would kind of save us where we could just pit right when we started to struggle…

William Byron said.

Further talking about the point, the HMS star driver added that the whole race was a bummer, especially his last run that was really long. The whole No:24 team has to step up their game, work on the car more than ever in order to redeem themselves at Gateway.

But the last run was really long. As good as we normally are here, it’s definitely a bummer. Appreciate Chevrolet and everyone on this No. 24 team. We’ve definitely got some work to do. We’ll go to Gateway and try to be better there.

William Byron added.

The comments from the star driver shows he is confident about his team and their chances in the coming races, despite the struggle. If they failed to use the momentum and the advantage of the regular season championship win, the 2025 season will pan out as the most disappointing year of the young drivers Cup career.

Also Read: Christopher Bell Blasts Carson Hocevar for “Ruining” His Darlington Race