Even though this has been a pretty decent start to a season in his NASCAR Cup career, Bubba Wallace remained pretty critical of his results and performances ahead of the upcoming race in COTA. Speaking to the media on Saturday, the 23XI Racing driver gave an honest and harsh assessment of his results so far this season, which notably include a couple of top 5 finishes.
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“Aside from the speedway races, we’ve not been executing the way we should be. We’ve been taking ourselves out of the game. I’ve been doing dumb stuff. So it’s falling in the same trend as every other year,” Wallace said.
“We had an in-depth meeting this week to basically get our s**t together and start to turn it around here. It’s a hard place for us to turn it around here, but obviously, I’m excited to be here, excited about the work we’ve put in for our road course prep. So no reason we can’t have a great race tomorrow.”
Wallace also mentioned that he will watch everything from last season except for the race in Texas. “The only one I won’t watch is Texas. Everything else I’ll watch, I won’t watch Texas,” he said.
Bubba Wallace demanded to be replaced last year after miserable COTA race
After his mistake ensured a third DNF of the season for him last year at COTA, Bubba Wallace made some rather bold demands for his team as he turned against himself. After he got out of the infield care center following crashing his #23 Camry into the back of Kyle Larson, Wallace said he was trying his best to not go down “the slippery slope of self-doubt.”
But he couldn’t stop himself and said, “Two weeks in a row of making rookie mistakes six years into Cup? Need to be replaced.”
This was a statement which attracted criticism, but one after which his boss, Denny Hamlin, insisted that he has grown as a racecar driver over the last few years. Hamlin stood behind Wallace and emphasized on his faith in the #23 driver.
Of course, later in the season, Bubba Wallace crossed a major career milestone after making it into the playoffs, making it until the Round of 12, a point he’d surely be hoping to surpass this year.
