“Disappointment,” How the 2022 NASCAR cup series regular season has been for Bubba Wallace
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Bubba Wallace (Via IMAGO)
Bubba Wallace had everything aligned for him to make to produce the best season of his cup career in 2022 with the 23X1 Racing. with the introduction of the Next-Gen car and his historic win last season at Talladega gave the No:23 team the momentum they needed to aim at the top in 2022 and the addition of Kurt Busch to the 23X1 team gave Bubba one of the best mentors you can hope for in NASCAR.
The 2022 regular season ended in disappointment for the 23X1 Racing team as Bubba Wallace, once again in his cup career, failed to secure a spot in the playoff as he remained winless throughout this year. Going into Daytona last weekend for the regular season finale Wallace was desperate for a win. Still, he was proven unlucky as Austin Dillon came out on top, crashing his playoff hopes.
Also read: “We can go to Darlington and run in the top five for sure,” Kyle Busch on his 2022 post-season debut
Bubba Wallace: An impressive start and the downfall
Wallace had an amazing start to the season with his P2 finish in the season opener at Daytona, where he missed out on the win at the end to team Penske rookie Austin Cindric. But following the impressive start came the downfall for the sole African American driver in the cp grid as he was able to finish inside the top only once, in Kansas, where Kurt Busch won, in the 18 races that followed.
Though Bubba Wallace was able to come close to a win in the first race at Atlanta, he crashed out sitting at P2 in the final lap, losing to William Byron and encountering a similar fate in his return to Talladega. In the Kansa cup race, Kurt Busch secured his first win in the No:45 car Wallace did have one of the if not the fastest cars, and he showed a lot of resilience in booking the top 10 spots to survive two pitstop penalties.
Bubba Wallace was not the most suited driver for road course races as part of the Toyota contingent, which was average in such races and its play in the poor patch of results. The No:23 team’s crew also has a huge role to play in the downfall as they made some blunder pit calls and committed some series mistakes, this time worsening some impressive runs produced by Wallace that could have yielded top 10 finishes.
Bubba Wallace: A late resurgence that was too late
Bubba Wallace made an incredible comeback, putting in impressive and solid runs, probably the best race weekends he had though out his career, in the latter half of the season. The resurgence came in New Hampshire Motor Speedway after a disappointing race outing in Atlanta, where he finished the race P3, and it was followed by another top run in Pocono, where he finished P8.
Disaster struck for 23X1 Racing in Pocono, where Kurt Busch suffered a concussion following his crash in qualifying, which has ruled him out since forcing him to renounce his [playoff spot. But Bubba Wallace wasn’t backing down as in the very next-race riding alongside Kurt’s substitute Ty Gibbs Wallace scored his first career top 5 finish in a road course at Indy.
Bubba Wallace then produced his best performance of the window by scoring his first career pole in Michigan and finishing the race with a solid P2. But that was the end to the top 10 run for the McDonald-sponsored driver as he then wasn’t able to finish inside the top 10 in the following three races as he failed to put in a solid fight for the playoff.
Though Wallace finished the season at P20 in the championship table and out of the playoff, the 23X1 Management gave him a multi-year contract extension which should put him in the right spot to perform well in the playoff races to prove that he isn’t a wasted potential and put him in the right position to be competitive from the first race of 2023 season.
Also read: “It sucks. No way of sugar-coating it,” Martin Truex Jr. on missing out of the 2022 playoffs
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Justin P Joy
(5010 Articles Published)