HOMESTEAD, Fla. — It would have been easy to have been frustrated, but Bubba Wallace looked at his third-place finish Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway in a different manner.
Although he lost the lead with 33 laps to go, Wallace was philosophical on pit road afterward.
“Kansas (in 2022) I went up and took that win, my last one,” Wallace said of his Cup victory 85 races ago. “I look at Talladega (in April 2023) … when I was leading taking the white and blocked (Ryan) Blaney and wrecked. Other than that, I’ve never been in a spot to give away a race. I could be pissed off about it, but I’ve never been in this situation before.”
The 2021 Cup Series champion led the final seven laps on the 1.5-mile oval.
Wallace’s season-best finish also has him in a position he’s never been six races into a season. Wallace left Homestead on Sunday night seventh in the points. He’s never been better than 18th at this time of the season since moving to Cup full-time in 2018.
“One of our big goals was just get through five races without being at a deficit in points, without putting ourselves in a position where we have to change the way we want to operate on a weekly basis,” said crew chief Charles Denike, who joined the team ahead of this season.
Wallace has had to scramble in past years because of his slow starts. He’s only made the playoffs once and didn’t clinch that spot until the regular-season finale at Daytona in 2023.
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While 20 races remain in the regular season, Wallace’s car has shown the speed to expect him to make the playoffs this year. He is one of two drivers in the top seven in points who were not in the top 10 at this time last year. The other is Alex Bowman, who passed Wallace for the lead Sunday only to relinquish it with seven laps to go to Kyle Larson.
“I messed up and Bowman messed up the same way I did and gave it to (Larson),” Wallace said.
Still, Wallace could commiserate with Bowman in a joking manner after the race.
“I walked up to Bowman after and I said, ‘We both suck,’” Wallace said, laughing as he recounted the moment. “It is what it is. All in a good day.”
It’s the second victory at the 1.5-mile oval for the Hendrick Motorsports star.
One of the keys for Wallace this season has been stage points. Wallace scored six Sunday, giving him 61 stage points out of his 166 total points. That’s 36.7% of his total points coming from stage points.
Those stage points have been valuable because a brake failure led to a 29th-place finish at Phoenix, and he was collected in a crash at Las Vegas, leading to a 28th-place finish.
Denike noted that the team hasn’t deliberately gone for stage points except at Circuit of the Americas. There, Denike kept Wallace out while others pitted and Wallace won the first stage.
The point is Wallace is earning those stage points based on the car’s performance instead of strategy.
The fact that Wallace was strong all day at Homestead — he ranked second in average running position at 5.9 — helped ease any frustration with not winning.
“We know we can do it,” said Wallace, who led 56 laps Sunday. “ … Today, we had to fight for it. We fired off just OK. I said, ‘Hey, I want clean air. I want good track position’ and my pit crew is solid. They got us up there, gave me a shot and had a good restart. Then it was game on from there. So just a really good weekend down here.”
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