"No one stands out": Bubba Wallace presses on no favorites idea ahead of NASCAR playoffs

NASCAR: Cup Series Playoff Media Day - Source: Imagn
NASCAR: Cup Series Playoff Media Day - Source: Imagn

Bubba Wallace has opened up on playoff favorites of this season ahead of Darlington. The 23XI Racing driver secured his berth to fight for the championship following his win at Brickyard earlier this year.

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Apart from that, Wallace has had three top 5s and six top 10s. Notably, in the last six races of the season, the #23 driver secured three top 10s, a win, a DNF at Daytona, and a 28th-place finish at Richmond.

Recently, in an appearance on The Teardown's playoff media day episode, Jeff Gluck recalled Bubba Wallace's comments on there being 'no favorite' this season as he emphasized:

"No one stands out."
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The show's co-host, Jordan Bianchi, then mentioned how, at different points this season, every driver has had a good stretch. He pointed to William Byron having a stretch, Denny Hamlin having one, Christopher Bell at one point, and more recently, even Bubba Wallace being 'in the middle of a stretch in a way.'

"So, if we're going off wins, then yeah, I've had no stretches. But if it's just consistency and good runs, yes, right now we've been crushing that. And that's how the other I feel like the others have been too. It's an interesting playoffs this year. It's anybody's to take for sure," Wallace said.
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Bubba Wallace previews his chances at playoff tracks

The NASCAR playoffs of 2025 will begin at Darlington in the Round of 16, which will be followed by Gateway and Bristol. Following that, four drivers will be eliminated for the Round of 12.

In the second round of the playoffs, the tracks would be New Hampshire, Kansas, and the Roval. After the elimination of four more drivers, the Round of 8 will begin at Las Vegas, move on to Talladega, and it will come down to Martinsville.

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The next four eliminations would leave the field with four contenders who'll battle it out for the championship at Phoenix.

During his conversation on the Teardown, Bubba Wallace assessed his chances at some of the tracks in the playoffs, expressing where he stood at each.

"Gateway is nothing. We had a break failure there last year and we were running 10th. Darlington's decent, lost a little bit of mojo in spring, got to find that. Bristol, I've always struggled there in the spring, but I mean, fall, we finished third.
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"A really good car there. So, I like the first round. Second round, Gateway, out of the first round, Gateway is my only, 'See what happens.' But the last two months, we've had every type of racetrack and we've had speed. We've had top 10 at these places," he said.

Speaking about Roval, Bubba Wallace claimed that he was ready to go back to the oval on the racetrack. However, he remarked that the #23 team has always shown up with speed on it, and they qualify well on that track. As for Talladega, Wallace claimed that it was 'a true wild card' but one which applied to everybody.

With that said, Bubba Wallace added that he's excited for his chances entering the playoffs.

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Edited by Hitesh Nigam
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