Bubba Wallace was helped past the finish line in 2nd in Atlanta by Ty Gibbs, but after his penalty and being classified 29th, Wallace wasn’t happy with his fellow Toyota driver. 

On the final lap of stage 2, Wallace quickly moved from the outer line to the inner line with a charging Gibbs coming through at the bottom. While Wallace braked up, Gibbs gave the 23XI Toyota a bump, and Wallace wheeled off the track and onto the grass. 

Gibbs, who went to apologize to Wallace, was met with a reaction he wasn’t expecting and got blunt about it. Gibbs spoke to the media following the completion of the race, which was halted for a red flag for over 3 hours. 

Gibbs told media personnel, including Matt Weaver, who uploaded the clip to X, Gibbs said, “I went to tell him sorry because he cleared himself, and then unfortunately, he showed a lot of disrespect. It seemed like it didn’t work out for him. I tried to help him out there at the end and push him to win”

Despite Gibbs’ best efforts, Wallace couldn’t get past Ryan Blaney, who took only the second Cup win for Ford this season in 20 regular-season races. 

With Wallace handed the black flag and sent all the way down to 29th post-race, Gibbs ended up 5th with 38 crucial points to stay in the hunt for a top three finish in the points table before the Chase resets the points table. He currently sits in 4th place.

While Gibbs explained his side of the interaction with Wallace, the 23XI driver provided a totally different side to the issue. 

Toyota drivers don’t race well together, says Wallace

Atlanta ended up being one of those races where tandem racing was crucial, and in the end, Wallace was given that all-important push by Ty Gibbs in his JGR 54 Toyota. 

Wallace was left distraught after the race when Ty Gibbs approached him, and that conversation didn’t carry on very long. Wallace spoke to TNT Sports after the race, and NASCAR uploaded a video of the interaction. 

Asked about his interaction with Gibbs and if the two Toyota drivers are okay, Wallace said, “We’ll be fine. He had an opportunity to give there a lot, and he didn’t do that. And so when I told him that he quickly went on the defense and said, ‘Don’t block.’”

Wallace added, “When you hit me square in the bumper, and you just ran right into me. So the block was clean. But yeah, that’s Toyota teammates. We don’t race very well together.”

A video was uploaded to X by a fan showing Ty Gibbs’ in-car footage from the moment Wallace came in to block him. And the real-time makes it look really difficult for Gibbs not to make contact with Wallace. 

What are your thoughts on the incident? Let us know. 

Read more at RFK Racing Digest.

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason