2025 finds Bubba Wallace with a brand new swagger, confidence and mentality heading into the 10-race playoffs, which begin this Sunday in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
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This is the 23XI Racing driver’s eighth full season in the NASCAR Cup Series, but only the second time he’s qualified for the 10-race playoffs. In his only other previous appearance, Wallace finished 10th in 2023.
A large part of that stems from Wallace winning this year’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the biggest win of his Cup career.
“I don’t feel like 2023 playoff Bubba, where like, ‘Oh man, it’s cool to be talking to you guys for Playoff Media Day,’” Wallace said on Wednesday at the Charlotte Convention Center.
“I feel like I belong here and want to continue this trend and have the utmost confidence in our team and our ability and potential to carry this into making a deep run into the playoffs. It all started back in February, but everything just ramps up another notch for the next 10 weeks.”
Arguably the biggest differences for the Wallace of the 2023 playoffs and this year’s playoffs is achievement and confidence. In 2023, he reached the 10-race, 16-driver postseason on points, failing to earn a win the entire season.
But this year, Wallace is still riding the high after his triumph at Indy. If he can win one of the crown jewels in NASCAR, that gives him the confidence that he can win any race in the playoffs.
Wallace failed to advance past the Round of 12 in 2023, but his Brickyard triumph has him thinking that he can potentially be a sleeper of sorts and drive his way into the Championship 4.
“I look at the schedule and there’s a lot of good tracks for us coming up,” he said. “We’ve had speed at almost every track on the circuit for the next 10 weeks, so it just takes that little bit more.
“It takes beating out the #5 (Kyle Larson), the #24 (William Byron), the #11 (Denny Hamlin). It takes beating the other 15 guys you’re racing against to do that.
“And, yes, we’ve had the speed to do that. We’ve got to clean up the execution standpoint and go capitalize on that.”
Wallace comes into the playoffs in a different position than before. His two previous Cup wins (Talladega in 2021 and Kansas in 2022) both came in the playoffs, even though he did not qualify for the playoffs in either year.
“Hell, I’m good at winning in the playoffs when I’m not in the playoffs,” Wallace quipped.
So can he finally win a playoff race while actually being part of the playoff qualified field? Time will tell.
