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Bubba Wallace explains how improved mindset helping performance in 2025: Nice to have a car 'that's in contention'

Nick Profile Picby:Nick Geddes•about 13 hours•

NickGeddesNews

Bubba Wallace
Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Bubba Wallace sees a big difference in his mindset this year as compared to the years prior, he said Friday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Now 11 races into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, it’s clear that improved, positive mindset is helping his on-track performance.

Wallace sits 11th in the playoff standings. When he shows up to the racetrack each week, he feels like he has a car worthy of contending for wins, something he didn’t have before.

“For our team, we’ve really been hitting on it all year long and it’s been fun to show up to the racetrack and be a car that’s in contention,” Wallace said. “There’s a couple things we want to clean up to really keep putting our name into the hat, but I’m excited for our chances to show up every weekend. It’s something you want as a racecar driver.

“You just want to be in contention every week, know that you have a shot every week and I feel that just about every time we show up, I now have the confidence in myself and our team that we can do what we need to do to win races.”

Beyond where he sits in the standings, Wallace has done a better job of picking up stage points. He has accumulated 100 stage points, the most of any driver without a trip to Victory Lane. While Tyler Reddick has been the star of 23XI Racing since joining the team in 2023, Wallace has actually led more laps than his teammate this season (103 to 86).

Bubba Wallace showing improvement in 2025

Wallace’s car has speed and that’s apparent. But even when things go wrong, as they did in this past Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway, he’s handling the disappointment better than before. Wallace took responsibility for the Lap 172 crash that ended his day. Wallace hit the wall with Joey Logano in his back bumper. From there, Wallace spun out in front of the field and chaos ensued. 

That left Wallace frustrated. But then new crew chief Charles Denike gave him some positive encouragement after the race.

“Where I’m at, is I can’t even compare where I’m at mentally compared to the years past of having a bad race at Texas — just as frustrated as I’ve ever been because I felt like I caused that and put our team behind after having a really good day — but I got out of the car and Charles gave me a laundry list of all the positive things we accomplished from the start of the week all the way until Sunday,” Wallace said.

“Listening to that, you don’t want to hear it, but then the list was so long that you’re forced to listen to it and it’s like damn, there is a lot more positives than this one negative. I appreciated that aspect and I did my interview and thought with my sarcastic laughing self that somehow pisses off a lot of people but oh well, I wasn’t mad or pissed off. I got back to the bus and was like, ‘Well, that sucked. Let’s move onto Kansas.'”