Bubba Wallace’s Insider Puts His Playoff Contention in Doubt Amid Ford Resurgence in the Bubble Battle

With the final race in the regular season at Daytona right around the corner, the battle for the final place in the playoffs will undoubtedly be an intense affair. The thing about Daytona is that there have been multiple occasions where drivers outside the playoff bubble have won races and gotten themselves through to the last 16. This is not good news for Bubba Wallace who currently occupies the final playoff place on points.

If anyone outside the playoffs wins, Bubba’s Cup Series season will be over. Wallace’s spotter Freddie Kraft also believes that things are looking a bit dicey for the 29-year-old and has singled out Ford as his biggest threat.

Two Drivers Are Worrying Bubba Wallace’s Spotter

In the past few races, Ford has risen through the ranks and has scored victories with Michael McDowell and Chris Buescher. The Ford teams might not have had a memorable season, but they can certainly close out the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series regular season with a bang. On a recent episode of Dirty Mo LIVE, host Andrew Kurland pointed out the two Ford-team drivers who could end Bubba Wallace’s season and leave him pretty frustrated at the end of it all.

Speaking about the playoff bubble and who can make it into the last 16, Kurland spoke about something Freddie Kraft had said earlier. Kraft is Bubba Wallace’s spotter, so he is partial towards him and he feels that two Ford drivers, Aric Almirola and Austin Cindric could prove to be the undoing of Wallace’s season.

“Freddie was saying the two drivers he is most worried about are Aric Almirola and Austin Cindric. In particular the Fords this weekend at Daytona. I mean if there’s any time for the Fords to be getting hot it’s right now,” he said.

Kurland believes that the Ford cars are in good form at the moment, as was proved because they have recently achieved race-winning form with Michael McDowell and Chris Buescher.

While Wallace might have felt like he had done enough to get through on points, Daytona’s record of having first-time season winners could end up being what knocks him out of the last 16. If the Ford teams can get their strategies right and work together to get a new driver on victory lane, it’s lights out for Bubba.

“They’ve kind of had some momentum on their side, I feel like, from their last month of August, capturing a bunch of wins with McDowell and Buescher. Maybe the Fords can get their act together and get one more guy in the playoffs before it’s over,” Kurland added.

The drivers at Ford team know what the task at hand is and one of them believes that working together is the only way at least one of them can get into victory lane and eventually the playoffs. That is one of the two, that Freddie Kraft is worried about, is Aric Almirola.

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In a recent episode of the NASCAR Live podcast, Almirola was posed the question by Dave Moody, “Obviously, you’d love for all the Ford guys to just line up on your back bumper and shove you onto victory lane, but there are a number of other Ford guys in the exact same situation as you. Is there any sort of a plan or is it just, you know, see who your friends are and who’s in the neighborhood when it comes down to it?”

The Stewart-Haas Racing man said that while most of the strategies play out organically, it was imperative for the Ford teams to work together for most of the race even if only one of their drivers could get into the playoffs.

The 39-year-old continued, “Like if everybody just goes every man for themselves, you will quickly find out that you are at a major disadvantage to the Chevrolets and the Toyotas if you choose not to work together, cause they will and they’ve proved it over the years. They have, you know, stuck together, worked together, they pit together, they do all the right things,” he added.

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Over the years, Daytona has given some of the most thrilling ends to the Cup Series regular season. Drivers nowhere near the playoffs on points have come through and secured shock victories and knocked out the ones who had enough points out of the playoffs. Will Bubba Wallace be able to hold on to the final playoff spot, or will yet another day of drama unfold at Daytona?