In the latter part of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Bubba Wallace looked to be in position to get back to victory lane for the first time since 2022.
Wallace, who led the second-most laps on the day (56), was in control. However, following the expiration of Ryan Blaney’s engine with 60 laps to go, another restart was upcoming, allowing for challengers to enter the picture again.
While the driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota sprung back into the lead on the restart, he began to get reeled in by polesitter Alex Bowman, who made the pass for the lead with 33 laps to go.
Wallace would surrender third to eventual race winner Kyle Larson.
As he reflected on his best finish of the season, Wallace was left wondering if he pushed his car too early in the final stint of the race.
“Yeah, I need to look back (at it), but all-in-all, what a day,” Wallace said. “Finally got us a good finish! But we need to go back and look at if I burned my stuff up to start there (final stint). I thought I got into a rhythm early, but that was a longer run there so thought our capability fell away.
“I got into the fence there and that allowed him (Alex Bowman) to get beside me and then just capability from then on wasn’t there. Hate that I messed up, but I came over the radio and said ‘I haven’t been in many situations like that to give away a race so a lot to learn today.’ I can’t even hang my head over that finish.
“Proud of the effort in race six. We’ve had fast cars, just nothing to show for it (yet). But, here we are. Got our Columbia Sportswear Toyota Camry XSE a top-three finish, so a good day.”
It was Wallace’s second top-10 finish of the season. The other was a ninth-place result at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Leave a Reply