Bubba Wallace is back in victory lane in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Wallace held off Kyle Larson through fuel-mileage concerns and a late-race red flag caused by rain to win the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27.
Wallace earned his third career Cup Series win and his first since 2022 at Kansas. The driver of the No. 23 Toyota has been a perpetual playoff bubble driver since joining 23XI Racing in 2021 because he hadn’t been able to lock into the playoffs via race victories.
But Wallace outdueled Larson, the series’ best driver, on separate green-white-checkered restarts following the red flag with four laps to go.
Wallace’s 23XI Racing team is locked into the playoffs now as an open entry as the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports lawsuit with NASCAR regarding the Cup Series charter remains ongoing.
Here are the winners and losers from the NASCAR Indianapolis race on July 27:
NASCAR Indianapolis winners and losers: Bubba Wallace wins the Brickyard 400
When Bubba Wallace enters Iowa Speedway next weekend, he’ll do so without the burden of worrying about the playoff cutline for the first time in his Cup Series career.
Wallace’s win on July 27 was his first career victory in the regular season. Winning early in the season can be a source of relief for many top race teams and drivers, and Wallace is not one to hide his emotions, good or bad.
This season appeared to be another grind to the end for Wallace, who entered Sunday in the final playoff spot, 16 points ahead of 17th.
Wallace came out of pit road on the final green-flag pit cycle in second among the leaders, then vaulted to the lead when Joey Logano cut a tire.
To top it off, Wallace had to battle late at Indy:
- A red flag with four laps to go caused by rain, canceling out Wallace’s four-second lead.
- Fuel-mileage concerns, with his 23XI Racing team sounding not-so-optimistic before the second GWC attempt.
- Two GWC restarts against Kyle Larson on the front row.
Wallace and his race team’s nerves might be frayed, but they’ll have a month to regroup before the playoffs begin on Labor Day weekend.
If you’ve been reading all year, you know how things usually go for Carson Hocevar and the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet.
The cars are usually fast enough to run in the top 10, but the in-race execution falls short whether it be equipment reliability or Hocevar’s own doing.
That’s what makes the 10th-place finish at Indy so notable. Hocevar qualified inside the top 10, stayed inside the top 10 for most of the race and managed through the two late-race restarts for a quality finish.
If Hocevar puts together a string of these results, which should be doable given the No. 77 team’s speed, he will be considered a playoff contender in 2026.
No matter what car, chassis or body, there are some tracks on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule that will be fuel-mileage race tracks. Pocono would have a fuel-mileage race for lawn mowers. Michigan will always be a race dictated by fuel mileage.
Indianapolis is along those same lines, given the length of the track and importance of track position. But the quality of racing outside of strategy doesn’t have to be this way.
Several times in Sunday’s race, cars tried to drive into the corner and be aggressive in making a pass, only to hit dirty air right behind the car it had approached and tried to pass. Early in the race, Erik Jones attempted to pass a car in the top five, only to hit dirty air entering the corner and losing a spot to the driver behind him.
Instead of seeing more side-by-side battles and possible close-quarters racing through the corners, drivers had to settle for hitting the right runs on the straightaway. That should not be stock car racing; IndyCar and Formula One racing is readily available for fans and industry leaders who want that kind of action.
We know what this can look like in 2025 because the Xfinity Series race on Saturday featured a great finish with close-quarters racing. Connor Zilisch got Taylor Gray loose twice in the final three laps just by driving close to the left-rear quarter panel through turns 1 and 2. Gray held off Zilisch once, but not the second time, and Zilisch took the lead and the win.
That sequence was simply next to impossible to produce in the Cup Series race, barring a block like the one that sent Ross Chastain into the wall early. It should never be that the Xfinity Series puts on better racing than the Cup Series, but that was the case this weekend in Indianapolis. Fix it, NASCAR.
Ryan Preece finished fourth with a torrid final few-lap push with new tires and no fuel concerns following the red flag, and lost 26 points to the cutline. Such is the current NASCAR playoff system.
While Wallace and 23XI Racing celebrated, Preece’s playoff chances suddenly became much narrower. Preece is now 42 points behind teammate Chris Buescher for 16th, right at the cutline.
Preece’s 2025 season has exceeded expectations overall; few had Preece as a playoff contender in Year 1 at RFK Racing as a part of a new, third race team. But the No. 60 team is now win-or-bust over the final four regular-season races.
Read the full article here
