Denny Hamlin reveals the ‘extra pressure’ on Bubba Wallace to perform when Michael Jordan is in the 23XI Pitbox

Denny Hamlin feels that the NASCAR Cup Series Richmond race was an event to forget for Bubba Wallace.

Denny Hamlin reveals the ‘extra pressure’ on Bubba Wallace to perform when Michael Jordan is in the 23XI Pitbox

Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin, and, Bubba Wallace

Denny Hamlin, the 23XI team’s co-owner, has talked about the pressure that Bubba Wallace was under at the Richmond event of the NASCAR Cup Series as he was on a poor streak. He also opened up about the ‘supposed’ extra pressure on Wallace because of the presence of the NBA Legend, Michael Jordan, who co-owns the team with Hamlin. Bubba Wallace had an outing to forget at the event, like most of the Toyota’s.

During the NASCAR Cup Series event at Richmond, Bubba Wallace was having an extremely tough on the track in his No:23 Camry, and his outing got even worse as he had to endure the pain of going through a terrible pit stop. Denny Hamlin feels that Richmond was tough on Wallace, and while talking about it on a podcast, he added, “The 23, of course Michael’s in town sitting on the box, and you know there’s no pressure that Jordan is sitting on your pit box.“

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“But uh, we fumbled the ball there on pit road, and especially during a green flag pit stop, you cannot make a mistake because, especially a penalty mistake, because you’ll go laps down so they rebounded, but they were going to run in the Top 10. Again Bubba needed that for his confidence, and then instead, he finishes bad and probably is as pissed off as I am right now,” he added.

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Looking at the comments of Denny Hamlin, it is pretty clear that Bubba Wallace needed a strong outing in front of Michael Jordan. However, everything went sideways for him at the event as while he was having a below-average race at the Richmond track, his progress was further hampered by the poor pit stop the 23Xi team executed that day. All in all, it was an outing that Wallace would want to get out of his system as soon as possible because everyone wants to impress when Jordan is in town, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be for Bubba Wallace.

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Bubba Wallace had a strong outing at the Bristol Dirt Race the next weekend

Bubba Wallace
Bubba Wallace

In the racing world, it has been indicated often that one is only as good as his last outing, keeping this into view, while Bubba Wallace had a tough outing in front of Michael Jordan in Richmond, he managed to put in a extremely strong performance at the Bristol Dirt race where he was even able to win a heat during qualifying. Wallace just missed out on a top-10 finish as he ended his exploits in P12.

This was way better in comparison to the extreme disappointment of the Richmond event. But in his recent races, Wallace has found it a bit tough to put his number 23 Toyota Camry through the wringer. At the COTA event, Wallace came away with a DNF, and in the race at the Atalanta Motor Speedway, he was only able to manage a disappointing P27 finish.

It seems that Bubba Wallace is finding it difficult to compete during the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series campaign. Considering everything that Denny Hamlin said and the recent performances of the number 23 driver, how do you see the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series campaign panning out for Wallace? Would he be able to pick up his performances in the upcoming races?

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