Denny Hamlin Disappointed by Bubba Wallace Dropping the Ball at Michigan

One week it is the pit crew, another week it is a sluggish performance. 23XI Racing’s No. 23 Toyota Camry driver is just unable to get his hands on the game this season. Looking back at Richmond, despite winning impressive stage points, Bubba Wallace did not finish in the front. And after his run in Monday’s race at Michigan, the team’s co-owner, Denny Hamlin, sounded a tad disappointed.

Bubba Wallace had shown glimpses of winning speed during the early laps of the race, which led the JGR driver to believe that Bubba would do better than his 18th-place finish. But what concerned Hamlin the most was Bubba’s strategy.

Bubba Wallace’s strategy baffled Denny Hamlin

The number 11 driver for Joe Gibbs Racing was not happy with the way Bubba Wallace raced in Michigan. He explained that once you have set your mind to win, crucial questions like when to pit and when to refuel arise. But in the case of Bubba, these things do not matter. And this is what vexed the 42-year-old team owner.

He said, “They’ll just come pit early. Like they’re conceding okay, we’re not good enough to win, so we’re just gonna go out here and get all the stage points we can and we’ll make up where we finish at the end.”

Hamlin definitely expected more from his driver, who started at pole. It is true that if there is no new winner in the next three races, the last spot will fall into the hands of the African-American driver, as he is 55 points ahead of TY Gibbs. But Bubba definitely needs a win to corkscrew his spot in the playoffs.

When talking about their strategy, it would appear to anyone that giving up stage points and contending for the win or even a top 5 spot might have been better. The Toyota Camry driver for 23XI finished P4 in Stage 2 but fell back to p18 by the end of the race.

Denny explained, “…he(Bubba) had started that deep before and drove back up to the top 10 easily, that they should be able to do that again, and they should have been able to do that again. So they didn’t need to keep up..”

But ultimately it did not work out for the number 23 team. The co-owner of 23XI admitted, “When I saw the finishing position of the 23, I’m like, hey man, our car was way faster than that!”

Watch this story: Kyle Busch Uncharacteristically Sides With Chase Elliott, Slamming Bubba Wallace Insider?s Demand

“Richmond and Michigan, they faded, just bled at the end of the race. Need to figure that out for sure. Because, when you got a fast car, you typically got a fast car typically for the whole race.” he further added.

Denny sides with his pit crew that the fans call out so often

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There is an age-old saying that goes, “All good things take time.” 23XI is a fairly new team, and it appears that they are still in the process of building up to the point where the community can refer to them as a formidable Cup Series team.

The driver of the #11 said that right at the inception of the team, he knew it would take them a minimum of 5 years to attain that position. He acknowledged that although they have fast cars, there are places where they lag. However, he knows that the team is well aware of their loopholes and the ways to fix them.

Building a team from scratch is hard. One cannot just conjure experts out of thin air and add them to the team. It needs time to let the guys get experience, hone their skills, and put them to work. It is a lengthy approach. Intricate decision-making goes into this process. In that light, Denny Hamlin pointed out the decisions that he has to take as a team owner: “Do we expand? Do we get more personnel? Do we get 3 pit crew groups and outsource one to another team to let us build our roster?”

No one knows what goes inside the garage of 23XI. The team has yet to lay a solid foundation. Denny revealed that although they hire their own coach, they use the facilities owned by Joe Gibbs Racing. He said that he has only ten members in his crew as of now.

“We don’t have any reserves…some of them were already on 23XI cars, then they were JGR employees, most of them came from other teams,” he mentioned.

As Denny Hamlin explained, it is a process. And as a new team, 23XI deserves all the support. One cannot expect them to start off and kiss the sky right on top. Will the pit crew of Bubba Wallace still receive the hate that they have been receiving for quite some time now?

Read more: ?I Got My C**p Together?: Bubba Wallace Reveals His Most Formidable Rival in Candid Self Reflection