The Cup Series race at Daytona on Saturday saw a big crash just 27 laps into the first green flag. The wreck appeared to be kicked off by Kyle Larson, who shoved Bubba Wallace into Joey Logano and Kyle Busch. But Wallace’s spotter, Freddie Kraft, has now accepted responsibility for the accident.
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Kraft admitted on the recent episode of Door, Bumper, Clear that he had his driver too focused on squaring up to Larson to give him a push that he had forgotten to mention that they were racing three-wide.
“I f***ed up by not telling Bubba we were three-wide,” he lamented and noted how Wallace had been too tight to Logano’s fender and that Larson had nothing to do with it.
“You see, we’re all tied together here. The second the #5 gets to us, we get a little squirrely right here. Puts us on Joey’s fender, and we can never get off of it because we’re three wide,” Kraft said, watching footage of the wreck.
“It started because we were too tight to the #22, which is my fault. But, you know, the #5 doesn’t do anything wrong.”
Bubba Wallace’s spotter Freddie Kraft took responsibility for the big wreck at Daytona on DBC today.
Said he was too focused on getting Bubba to square up Kyle Larson to give him a push entering the trioval and didn’t tell him they were three-wide. Said Bubba was too tight to… https://t.co/B2YFn6pln2
— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) August 25, 2025
Despite the submission, he did go on to mention that the wreck got triggered when Larson’s No. 5 Chevy nudged Wallace’s car. It wasn’t an aggressive shove by any means, but it did enough to push the No. 23 Camry to Logano’s fender. In the end, Kraft stressed multiple times that the fault was his.
Denny Hamlin blames Wallace for the big wreck at Daytona
Joe Gibbs Racing veteran and 23XI Racing co-owner, Denny Hamlin, was one of the 12 drivers who were caught in the wreck. Speaking on Actions Detrimental, he pointed the finger straight at Wallace for triggering the accident.
Hamlin said, “It looked to me that Bubba just squeezed those two guys below him down. You could just see that they’re there, two cars on the inside. I don’t know what Freddie [Kraft, Wallace’s spotter] was calling.
“Maybe he was saying three wide top or not. I’m not sure. But he [Wallace] just squeezed on down there, and there was no room. So he ended up wrecking himself and obviously a few others.”
Clearly, Hamlin did not go easy on the assessment just because Wallace drove for his team. He refused to accept the contention that Larson’s contact is what initiated things and declared that Wallace wasn’t “clear” and that he made some reckless decisions.
The 23XI Racing driver, regardless of whether the fault was his or his spotter’s, saw his day end with the big one.
