“We were too buried to win the race”: Bubba Wallace talks about not executing the plan in Talladega playoff race

Heading into Talladega Superspeedway, Bubba Wallace was one of the favorites to win the race given his track record at the 2.66-mile oval, where he claimed his first Cup Series race.

As the laps unfolded during last Sunday's Yellawood 500, it became clear that Wallace would not be the protagonist of the race as he and all the Toyotas were mired in the back of the field. The lack of track position hurt the #23 driver's playoff run as he failed to score any stage points in the 188-lap race.

Bubba Wallace termed the race an uphill battle and suggested that the Toyotas were unable to make any inroads during the course of the race due to a bad strategy call.

"An uphill battle, buried, I don't know where we were, Hell we were at the back by then. So just trying to make something happen. I hate it for us, I hate it for the #45, because I told him on the restart don't lift and we should have just stayed in line and rode it out to the last lap. Maybe it would have been a different outcome but we were too buried to win the race." he said to media post-race. (via Frontstretch).

He added:

"All in all not the day that we needed. We put ourselves behind working on a plan - plans are great with your teammates, but I feel like it hurt us to start and we got buried back in track position. So you have to fight and claw your way back up to the top and it took us what three stages to get there and we gave it away on the last pitstop."

Bubba Wallace admitted that the team had circled the race at Talladega hoping for a good result but weren't able to execute their plans.

After securing a solid third-place finish at Texas, the #23 Toyota driver's 23rd-place finish at Talladega has put him nine points below the cut-off mark heading into the elimination race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

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Bubba Wallace reckons sticking with the Toyotas hurt his race

Superspeedway races require great teamwork and we often see teammates and manufacturers aligning with each other with strategy calls and pit stops. Strength lies in numbers in such a strategy, and Toyota is severely disadvantaged as it fields just six cars.

Bubba Wallace reckoned playing the team game hurt his race, as the Toyotas weren't able to charge through the pack. He said:

“We were trying to let Toyotas in. I’m all for it. So if Toyota or anybody at JGR sees this, I’m all for it. But it was just hurting us and it was just pulling us back."

Wallace added:

"We gotta fight to get to the front, and then when it’s time to give and take we start doing it there but we’re riding 20th and they are like 'Hey Come on, get in line' and it’s like that moves our line back so it’s like that, that didn’t really do us any help so we just gotta revamp it but yeah, just one of those days.”

With no more superspeedway races left this season, the same strategy issues will not be a factor. Bubba Wallace will however hope for a stellar performance at Charlotte Motor Speedway to continue his run in the playoffs.