Bubba Wallace: 2025 NASCAR Driver Profile

His best chances are at superspeedways, as he is a former winner at Talladega (2021) and has put together an impressive pedigree at Daytona with five top-5 finishes and an impressive average finish of 11.9 in 15 Cup starts. Wallace has quietly become an solid short tracker as well, scoring top-5 finishes at Martinsville, Bristol, and Richmond last season. He also has his moments on intermediates like Texas and Michigan and, as previously stated, he’s a former winner at Kansas, the one 1.5-mile track where 23XI’s cars consistently contend no matter who is behind the wheel.

Wallace’s biggest weakness continues to be on road courses, where he’s only recorded three top 10s in 32 Cup starts. A playoff berth would be a near certainty if he can find a way to make pace there and, to his credit, he made considerable progress last October with a ninth-place Charlotte Roval finish.

Bubba Wallace career stats

On and off the track, Wallace is flashing maturity, mastering some of the mental health issues that, at times, disrupted career momentum. Becoming a father for the first time last fall has provided fresh perspective.

On the ongoing 23XI vs. NASCAR lawsuit, the team’s two entries will have guaranteed starting spots this season, so consider that bullet dodged. How much the team will be paid by NASCAR is an argument that will be heard by the Fourth Circuit court in May.

Now it’s just a matter of Wallace developing proper chemistry with Denike and showing up to Daytona on a mission to break the winless drought. The pieces are in place in 2025 for continued improvement.

The Bubba Wallace file

Car: No. 23 Toyota

Team: 23XI Racing

Crew chief: Charles Denike

Years with current team: 5

Best points finish: 10 (2023)

Hometown: Mobile, Alabama

Born: Oct. 8, 1993 

Scouting report

Anonymous takes from drivers, crew chiefs, and assorted industry insiders:

“Bubba thinks the track is his and you should move over for him,” says one rival. “Total prick out there,” says another. “I hate racing that guy,” says one more.

There is a general theme when it comes to racing alongside Wallace, and it’s generally not a positive one.

A team owner calls Wallace “an enigma” and wonders what kind of driver he could be if he were on a team that wasn’t always in the news cycle for some sort of drama.

“He could be great – and great for the sport,” the team owner says. “Somewhere in there is a great racecar driver, but he’s got to get past the rest of it.” At the same time, the owner acknowledges that, by all accounts, Wallace is starting to put in the work and “is always there and in the mix,” but wonders why he doesn’t have the same speed as teammate Tyler Reddick.

“This season is going to be a big tell for what he is moving forward.”

A journalist empathizes with the 23XI driver: “I write anything about him, good, bad, or indifferent, and the most hateful rhetoric comes out of the woodwork. I can’t imagine having that much hatefulness follow me around and not be distracted by it or resentful of it. Good for him getting off social media and focusing on his racecraft. In some ways, it’s probably allowed him to hunker down and get better behind the wheel.”