“Finally closed one out. This feels good,” Bubba Wallace ecstatically said recently. The No. 23 Toyota driver entered Homestead-Miami Speedway with the prediction models blaring one name in front of him. Tyler Reddick, his teammate, won last fall’s race on the same track after passing Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney on the last lap. So all the spotlight was on the No. 45 driver to dazzle his fans in Florida yet again.

However, Bubba Wallace flipped the script within the 23XI Racing team this time. He and his team executed a race day that spelled the highest limits of speed. He even waged a war with the track’s best racer – and thus demanded his due respect after a long battle.

The rise of Bubba Wallace 

Since his 2023 debut, Tyler Reddick has dominated the image of 23XI Racing. He picked up 5 of the 8 NASCAR Cup Series wins that Michael Jordan’s team has achieved so far. Bubba Wallace, on the other hand, has usually been lagging behind Reddick, owning only two victories at Kansas and Talladega. However, the 2025 Straight Talk Wireless 400 race demonstrated Wallace’s drastic improvement. During Cup Series practice on Saturday, he set the fastest pace of 166.955mph on his first lap. He was also fastest in the best 10 consecutive lap average. This speed continued over to the final race on Sunday.

Having qualified 9th, Bubba Wallace paced himself at first. Then he cracked the top-five by the end of the second stage, and from then onwards engaged in a fiery battle. In a post-race interview, he elaborated how the No. 23 team’s concerted efforts shone: “We fired off just okay. I said, ‘Hey, I want clean air, I want good track position,’ and my pit crew is solid. They got us up there, gave me a shot, had a good restart. Then it was game on from there.”

But what hovered largely on Bubba Wallace‘s mind was beating his teammate. Tyler Reddick started 20th and could only finish in 8th place, while Wallace rejoiced in 3rd. He continued: “Yeah, it’s good to come out here with a little bit of weight off your shoulders. A good points day, and I truly believe in this team, the direction that we’re heading being at the front. I’m already tired of talking about the 45 each and every week. Talk about 23 a little bit.”

Bubba Wallace’s run stood out because of the solid fight he gave to Kyle Larson. For the Hendrick Motorsports star, Homestead is the best-performing track. He led north of 90 laps in four of his 11 Homestead starts. Yet Wallace snatched the lead from him on lap 176 this past weekend. Subsequently, though, both Wallace and Alex Bowman gave in to Larson’s moves.

Wallace talked about this encounter: “Yeah, if I had known he was going to go up there and pass Bowman, I think I would have fought a little bit harder. My plan was, hopefully, they got to racing a little bit. But I messed up and Bowman messed up the same way I did and gave it to him. That’s what I told him – I walked to Bowman after and said, ‘We both s—.'”

Kyle Larson’s ability to ride the fence at Homestead should be studied. With pinpoint precision and speed, he manages to make the most out of the track and nobody else seems to keep up with him. While fighting for the lead with Alex Bowman, Larson pushed him hard every Turn and the moment Bowman slipped up after hitting the wall on Turns 3 and 4 during Lap 261, Larson rocketed past him.

At the end of the day, Bubba Wallace was happy with his performance. So was his team owner who also beamed with pride despite falling back.

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Words of appreciation from the team lead

The Homestead-Miami race had a slew of Toyota cars in the top ten. Bubba Wallace and Tyler Reddick occupied places 3 and 8. Also present was their team owner,r Denny Hamlin, and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe. For Hamlin, it was also a solid run. With a new sponsor, Progressive Insurance, adorning the No. 11 Toyota, Hamlin won the second stage. He caught the lead after Ryan Blaney, who led a race-high 124 laps, got stamped out by lapped traffic. In the end, though, Hamlin could not crack the fierce battle that his No. 23 driver waged against Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson.

So even though Denny Hamlin could eke out a 5th-place finish, he could not help but be content. That is because Bubba Wallace has considerably advanced over the past five years, and that was visible in Homestead. With a new crew chief in Charles Denike, Wallace is getting up to speed. Hamlin showered his praises: “We feel like we got a game changer there in Charles that is getting the best out of Bubba. Their cars are fast. I would contend the 23XI cars in general are just really fast, so I think they got really fast cars, and Bubba’s putting it together. He’s putting in the work, and obviously it’s showing with the results right now.”

Evidently, it is a happy day for the Toyota garage. This podium finish in Homestead-Miami should be enough to fuel Bubba Wallace’s drive for the upcoming races. Do you think he can carry this good form to Martinsville? Let us know in the comments!