Kevin Harvick: Pressure remains on Bubba Wallace

Bubba Wallace is now playoff-bound after winning the Brickyard 400, but Kevin Harvick wants to see more from him. On Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Harvick talked about the pressure still being on Wallace to succeed.

“I think the capability of speed is there. We saw it at the beginning of the season,” Harvick said. They’ve had flashes from the first seven or eight races in between now and then. But they hadn’t been that same team that we saw the first six or seven weeks.

“That’s the trick. How do you do it every week? We talk about William Bryon, 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.”

Kevin Harvick wants Bubba Wallace to be more like Denny Hamlin

Kevin Harvick went on to say that the thought was Bubba Wallace was going to win earlier, but he has had speed “on occasions that they need.” He then said that young drivers like Wallace, Byron and Bell need to be more like Denny Hamlin when it comes to being consistent and grinding out strong finishes. At the Brickyard 400, Hamlin finished third despite starting the race in last place.

“It’s in your head, and it’s time management,” Harvick explained. “It really is. It’s time management and the things that you have to deal with as a Cup driver. How can you show up week after week if you’re having a bad day, if you had a bad week, if there’s controversy in the media, if there’s all these different things that can affect what you do? How can you show up at all those moments of preparation and all those meetings and get that information in a small period of time during the week and at the race track week after week after week?

Because of Wallace clinching a playoff spot, the pressure is off him to win a race. He snapped a 100-race winless streak and won his third career Cup Series race. This season, Wallace has recorded eight top-10 finishes and four top-five finishes to go along with his win. He will look to get his second victory this Sunday when the NASCAR drivers compete at the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway.