With five races to go until the regular season ends, the playoff battle in the NASCAR Cup Series is heating up. Bubba Wallace, who qualified for the playoffs for the first time in 2023, is in a very familiar position once again. With no wins in 21 races, Wallace is hoping to ‘point’ his way into the playoffs, just like last season. Relying on his ‘wildcard’, Bubba Wallace knows that the next five races will define his entire season.

With luck on his side and a top-10 finish at Pocono Raceway, Bubba Wallace remains firmly in the playoff bubble. However, the 30-year-old has an uphill climb as he remains 27 points behind Ross Chastain, who holds the final playoff spot as things stand.

Bubba Wallace is looking for consistency in the remaining races

For Bubba Wallace, superspeedways have always been the wildcards that have worked in his favor. The 23XI Racing driver has an average finish of 12.4 at Daytona International Speedway, with six top-five results in the last 14 races he has run on the track. The 2.5-mile superspeedway is where Bubba Wallace has his second-highest average finish, so it should come as no surprise that he’s relying on getting a good result at the Coke Zero Sugar 400. Considering that his average finish this season is 16.857, Bubba Wallace has reason enough to consider it his ‘wildcard’ this season.

Speaking to Frontstretch’s Anthony Damcott and other media members ahead of the race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Bubba Wallace was asked about his team’s strengths by a journalist from MRN. The 30-year-old racing driver replied, “What’s next? Richmond, really good there. Michigan, Daytona. All four really good tracks coming up for us. But, it’s just a matter of if we show up with our heads in the game and ready to work and battle, you know. Definitely got our work cut out for us and I see that last week, race was decent, points stay for us but we’re still out. Bottom line, we’re still out. We got a lot of work to do, you know a win in these next four will be great. I’d be in a lot better mood.”

With the heated incident involving Alex Bowman during the cool-down lap in Chicago, and the subsequent $50,000 fine, it’s not a surprise that Bubba Wallace hasn’t been in the best of mood. However, the result at Pocono Raceway would have undoubtedly cheered him up, as he finished 10th for only the seventh time this season. Before the weekend at Pocono Raceway, Ross Chastain was 53 points above the playoff elimination, and Wallace was 45 points below it. However, Chastain crashed in Lap 53 and ended up in 36th place. The gap between Chastain and Wallace has now been reduced to 27 points.

Another thing that worked in Bubba Wallace’s favor at Pocono Raceway was Ty Gibbs suffering from an engine failure. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver is also hoping to make it to playoffs through points, but a second DNF of the season meant that Gibbs is just 67 points above the elimination line as things stand. Bubba Wallace’s strategy from now until playoffs begin at Atlanta will be to finish consistently high and try to sneak a win at Daytona International Speedway. That remains his best chance of securing a playoff spot.

Can Bubba Wallace catch up to Ross Chastain?

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As things stand, Ross Chastain occupies the final playoff spot and is currently 13th, two places ahead of Bubba Wallace in the driver standings. With just 27 points separating the two, and five races of the regular season remaining, it won’t be surprising if Phil Surgen and the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing team hit the panic button ahead of the race in Indianapolis, hoping to maintain if not extend the gap before the Olympics break begins.

Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro broke loose in Turn 3 of Lap 53 at Pocono Raceway, resulting in the car making hard contact with the outside wall. If that wasn’t bad enough, Chastain also scraped his car on Turn 1 while returning to the pit road, after which his crew determined that his race was over. Expressing his frustration at the result at Pocono Raceway, Ross Chastain said, “I’m a racecar driver in the Cup Series, I shouldn’t be doing that. You don’t see us do that too often, so when I do it myself, I’m as surprised as everyone else. I just flat-spuned out. We’re all sliding around but I just spun out.”

As for Bubba Wallace, his No. 23 Toyota Camry has shown some significant improvement since his early season struggles, where he severely lacked speed. If the 30-year-old can secure another top-10 result at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the pressure will be on Ross Chastain, who will be at serious risk of missing out on a playoff spot.

Do you think Bubba Wallace will make it to the NASCAR playoffs? Let us know in the comments!