Bubba Wallace: Pocono was 'pretty eye-opening of how far we're off' after P10 finish
Bubba Wallace was able to capture a top-ten finish at Pocono Raceway, sneaking his way in with a P10 when the checkered flag waved.
It was much better weekend for Wallace than last Sunday’s race in Chicago, as the 23XI Racing wheelman was able to make up some serious ground in the playoff standings. After Ross Chastain dealt with a wreck that ended his afternoon, Wallace is now only 27 points behind the Trackhouse Racing driver.
Afterwards, Wallace explained why he was happy with making up some space in the standings, and the rebound from the Chicago Street Race, he wasn’t thrilled with the car he was driving, and he believes that it was pretty far off from the rest of the competitors in Pennsylvania.
“It’s about points, so we didn’t capitalize on points, but (Ross Chastain) had a bad day, (Ty Gibbs) had a bad day. It was a nice rebound. Usually, it’s the opposite. We start really good and end up fading and giving up a lot track position. Here, we were able to call a good strategy and hang on. We just didn’t have the car,” Wallace said, via NBC Sports. “The 6 (Brad Keselowski) drove it down into (turn) one and I was going to race the heck out of him and I realized I was going to crash and he was going to keep going. It’s pretty eye-opening of how far we’re off. Going to have a good debrief tomorrow.
“All in all, I was trying to have fun the first stages, that’s what I said I was going to do. Was trying my butt off and here we are.”
Nevertheless, Bubba Wallace can’t be too mad, as Pocono Raceway was a serious win for him and his team on Sunday. Moving forward, he has some more ground to make up if he wants to make the playoffs, but the 23XI Racing driver can take solace in the fact that he’s not that far out after this weekend.
Bubba Wallace congratulates Ryan Blaney for Pocono Raceway win
Alas, it’s been an up-and-down season for Bubba Wallace in NASCAR, but he didn’t let that keep him from showing some good sportsmanship to Ryan Blaney after his win on Sunday at Pocono.
Wallace, who has had an interesting week following a much-publicized post-race incident at Chicago, made sure to work his way over to where Blaney was celebrating his win to offer him some congratulations.
Check it out below, as the moment was captured and shared by Wallace to X, formerly known as Twitter, following Sunday’s race.
For Bubba Wallace, it’s a nice gesture after a week in which he was the subject of plenty of scrutiny in the sport, and a moment he was happy to share with his friend in the reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney.
On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this article.