Denny Hamlin explains how Michael Jordan helped Bubba Wallace to become a leader

Denny Hamlin and Michae Jordan built 23XI Racing from scratch in 2021.

Denny Hamlin explains how Michael Jordan helped Bubba Wallace to become a leader

Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace and Michael Jordan (Via IMAGO)

23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace is the driver who often gets the most spotlight in the Cup garage due to his unique position as the sport’s sole African-American driver in the top tier. He drives for NBA legend Michael Jordan’s team and is the poster boy of NASCAR’s inclusivity projects, all this puts him under the microscope.  

Wallace is infamous for being too hard on himself and some of his comments on the media put 23XI in a tough spot. They often had to do the cleanup work over his post-race comments and the damage control peaked in the 2022 season according to the Toyota team co-owner and JGR driver Denny Hamlin.

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Hamlin, while talking at the 2023 NASCAR awards revealed that Jordan has played an important role in helping Wallace to evolve into a team leader at 23XI. He said that the champion NBA player stepped in seeing Wallace’s situation and voiced his opinion influencing the No:23 Camry driver to step up as a leader in the team.

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Where he was in 2022 was a lot tougher to manage because you were doing a lot of damage control. Maybe some things he'd say in the media, we'd have to do some work on the backend to make it right. Michael really helped in stepping in and voicing his opinion on it, and making Bubba step up as a leader.
Hamlin said via ABC News.

Bubba Wallace had to battle mental health issues after Ryan Blaney’s championship win

The 2023 season was the best year of Bubba Wallace’s Cup career. He finished the season P10 in the championship standing and was able to get into the playoff R-12, in his maiden playoff entry. The only disappointing thing about his 2023 was the winless run.

Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney
Bubba Wallace and Ryan Blaney (Via IMAGO)

In the same year, his close friend Ryan Blaney won the championship following an impressive race last five events. Wallace had mixed feelings about Blaney winning as he was both happy and jealous to see his friend leaving the dream. Wallace revealed his feelings by saying;

He called me a couple of days later and I was like, ‘Man, I guess you winning the championship sent me into depression.’ Like congrats, but I don’t want to see that.

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