"How do you do it every week?": Kevin Harvick touches on the importance of being consistent in a NASCAR season

Kevin Harvick recently commented on what separates good NASCAR drivers from the elite ones. After the Brickyard 400 in which Bubba Wallace emerged victorious, Harvick took the mic on his podcast to not only comment on the 23XI Racing driver's prospects this year, but also how a group of drivers are different from the rare few.

In the recent episode of the Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick claimed that when it comes to Bubba Wallace, the 'capability of speed' was there all along in 2025. He touched on the flashes from earlier in the season between the first few races. However, Harvick said the #23 team wasn't able to sustain those flashes, which led him to an interesting question.

"How do you do it every week? We talk about William Byron and we talk about Christopher Bell a lot. Those guys that can't seem to put together a whole season to be consistently fast or figuring things out to get finishes week after week after week. And now that's on Bubba and his team. It goes from one pressure to another, the expectation and they have it too is to win and we all thought he was going to win early. Took a lot longer than than we thought, but they've had the speed on occasions that they need," Harvick described. [12:10 onwards]

It's worth mentioning that in the first seven races of the season, Wallace had two top 5 finishes (Miami and Martinsville) and a ninth-place finish (Atlanta). However, after Martinsville, his next top 5 finish came at Michigan, in the 15th race of the season.

Kevin Harvick on why drivers like Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott are a cut above the rest

After commenting on Bubba Wallace's Brickyard 400 win and the lack of consistency, Kevin Harvick wondered how most NASCAR drivers do what drivers like Denny Hamlin do.

The former SHR driver said the difference between someone like the JGR veteran and Christopher Bell is that drivers like Hamlin can start a race from last and end their day by racing for the win.

"These guys, Bubba [Wallace], [William] Byron, even [Ryan] Blaney, a lot of the younger guys, Chase Briscoe, Chase Elliott does it pretty good. I mean, as bad as he ran yesterday, they came back and had a solid finish. And that's what Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin do better than everybody else. They grind out those days when they're not doing good or something goes wrong and they have to rebound," Kevin Harvick commented. [13:10]

He added that 'those other guys haven't figured out' how to perform on the level of Elliott or Hamlin. And a big factor in that is 'experience' as per Kevin Harvick.