“He wears his emotions on his sleeve”: William Byron gives a crystal clear take on his right-hand man’s ‘real’ dissatisfaction after championship slip

William Byron has delivered a crystal clear message after hitting the lowest point in his Cup Series career since pairing with crew chief Rudy Fugle in 2021. The Hendrick Motorsports ace outlined that Fugle is an emotional man who puts huge effort into the #24 Chevrolet Camaro's success.

Byron's seventh full-time Cup Series season kicked off on a dominant note. The #24 Chevy driver opened the season with a bang, clinching the season-opener Daytona 500, registering his second Daytona win and first in the 500. Though the Charlotte, North Carolina native concluded the season with three wins, ranking himself as the best HMS driver of the season, he led 357 laps, the lowest of the Byron-Fugle era.

After making it to the Championship 4, courtesy of Christopher Bell's disqualification for riding the wall on the final lap at the Martinsville Speedway, Byron was the only HMS driver with a shot at the highly-coveted title. But Team Penske reigned supreme with Joey Logano claiming his third title while Ryan Blaney settled in second for a 1-2 finish.

However, Fugle's post-race demeanor prompted a reporter to believe William Byron's crew chief took the loss way harder than the driver. Thus, the #24 Chevy driver explained his right-hand man's "real" disappointment amid the missed championship.

He (Fugle) just puts a lot into it, and our roles are different and he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and I love that about him. So yeah, we’re in a good place. All of our postseason meetings and talks about Phoenix are in a great spot, and we’re ready to go next year. So we have a lot of goals to achieve next year and I feel like he’s in a good place. But yeah, emotions are raw right after the race and sometimes in the car, it’s a little bit different picture than what they see. So yeah, I think it was just kind of real for him," William Byron said via NASCAR.

Byron and Fugle worked for the first time at Kyle Busch Motorsports, where the two claimed seven wins in the 2016 season.

A look into how William Byron missed his career-first Cup Series championship

William Byron had three regular season wins before the playoffs began but multiple displays of a diminished performance posed uncertainties about how the playoffs would pan out. Moreover, after a P9 finish at the playoff opener race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway and subsequent P34 and P17 finishes at the Watkins Glen and Bristol Motor Speedway.

Nonetheless, the HMS driver re-emerged in his dominant form in the next six races, clinching straight top-six finishes.

Byron began the penultimate race in eighth place but successfully kept himself inside the top 5 in both stages. Moreover, after all title contenders -Logano, Blaney, and Tyler Reddick pitted on Lap 253, the HMS driver snapped the lead and dominated the final overtime restart on Lap 259.

However, Logano's blazing-fast Team Penske Ford overtook the Chevy driver on the next lap. After that, it was Blaney versus Logano while Byron was over five seconds off pace against the Penske drivers.

Thus, William Byron concluded the season in third place, while his teammates ranked below him. Kyle Larson stood sixth, followed by Chase Elliott in seventh, and Alex Bowman in ninth.