Bubba Wallace reluctantly learns from "painful" Texas replay before Cup race

Bubba Wallace revealed learning from watching the Texas replay from the 2023 Cup Series season, which he refused to watch earlier.

A couple of weeks earlier, Wallace had stated that he would watch replays of his old races to potentially learn from the mistakes and do better in the races this season. However, he also stated that he refused to watch the Texas Motor Speedway replay from 2023.

"So, even when you take yourself out – the only one I won’t watch is Texas [Motor Speedway]. Everything else I watch if I crash out Lap One, I’ll watch it. I won’t watch Texas," he said via On3.

During the Playoffs race at Texas last year, Bubba Wallace was close to victory but lost out to William Byron in a late restart and hence could not qualify for the next round. This was a major reason why he refused to watch the race until he did.

Speaking before this year's race at Texas via Frontstretch, Wallace revealed that he watched the replay from last year and shared his learnings.

"I finally watched Texas, I did. I had to. We had an analytics meeting and they showed the replays so, had to watch it. It's painful."

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Bubba Wallace reveals his learning from the 2023 Texas incident

The 23XI driver led most of the Texas race in 2023, making an impressive stint. After having a close battle at the top with Kyle Larson, a caution came out as Larson made contact with Bubba Wallace and went into the wall.

Shortly after that restart, another incident occurred with multiple cars crashing. There were just 7 laps to go by the time the track was cleared up and set for racing again. Wallace was still leading with Chase Briscoe on the inside. On the restart, Briscoe got a push from William Byron behind him who then made it a three-way battle for the lead, ultimately taking it, and Wallace lost the chance of winning.

He stated that having no one to push him was one of the reasons he lost on the restart.

"I think it all started kind of from pushing. So it's who you want lined up on your bumper, pushing you to give that advantage. So I think we've got to do a better job at analyzing that in the moment and calling the right shots," Bubba Wallace said as posted by Bob Pockrass.