Bubba Wallace looking to 'gain confidence' after qualifying at Watkins Glen

While he didn’t make the final round of qualifying, Bubba Wallace thinks he did a “decent” job on the twists of Watkins Glen. There are things he can clean up, but as far as road course racing goes, this is one of Wallace’s best efforts in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Let’s just remember for a moment that Bubba Wallace has never finished better than 23rd at The Glen. With his qualifying effort, Wallace will start P12.

The good news for Wallace, he outperformed Chase Elliott, Daniel Suárez, and Alex Bowman. Bad news, Ty Gibbs, AJ Allmendinger, and Corey LaJoie all made the top-10 ahead of Wallace.

“Man, I just wish I could go out there and just pick up a half second and match the 45 [of Reddick],” Wallace said to NBC. “I really struggle through 2 and 3 I was on a highlight reel for the wrong reasons. But just trying to gain the confidence and grip through there has been our biggest struggle, hell, every time we come here in this car.

“So, gotta get that figured out but talking to the engineers here and looking at SMT and, I was really giving up a lot of time into 2 just trying to baby it. And I was like, ‘Hey we need a lap here let’s try to get something,’ and you know what? Still wasn’t good enough. So, God Almighty! It’s frustrating but we should have a decent starting spot, a good pit selection I believe, so all-in-all a decent day for our McDonald’s team.”

Prior to Saturday’s qualifying effort, Wallace had never started better than 23rd at this track. His career finishes are P25, P28, P23, and P35 just a year ago. This is a major improvement from those prior results.

Bubba Wallace might get saved by the bossman

The last thing Bubba Wallace wants to see on Sunday is another new winner. Allmendinger, Gibbs, and LaJoie all pose a threat right now. In reality, Gibbs and Allmendinger are the biggest threats. Then again, The Glen produces more cautions than Indy.

So, if there are more cautions, we will see the field move around more. Restarts give drivers chances to improve track position and take advantage of weaker cars.

The good news for Wallace, his boss, Denny Hamlin is the pole winner. With that secured by Hamlin, and a fast Tyler Reddick as well, 23XI Racing has chances to play defense for the 23 team.

I don’t mean direct manipulation of the race. However, if Hamlin or Reddick win, that means no new winners emerge. With track position on Suárez, Wallace might be able to hold on to his points lead, too.