Bubba Wallace took one look at the new track in San Diego and didn’t sugarcoat it. After all, Coronado is nothing like anything NASCAR has been to before, built right on a Navy base, laid over old runways, surfaces that flip on you corner to corner.

“When SVG says, ‘You just try not to crash,’ I think that makes us all feel like, hey, maybe,” Wallace said, as shared by Bryan Nolen. “I still say he’s going to beat us by like a lap or something.”

That’s not the nerves talking. Wallace actually broke down why.

“The layout is cool,” he said. “It’s just that the different surface levels and surfaces — there’s really no grip on any of them. You get one lap of grip with new tires, and then you’re just managing and saving them.”

He’d already gotten a sneak peek at how ugly it could get. He caught the Truck race the day before and watched a pack of trucks try to stretch old tires deep into a stage.

“There’s no way you have tires left after that stage,” he said.

This isn’t Wallace talking himself into a panic. The numbers back him up. SVG grabbed the pole with a 2:14.788. Wallace qualified 12th, a second and a half slower, same car, same tires.

That gap’s not random. SVG made his whole career in Australian Supercars, where the grip changes under you constantly, basically a preview of what Coronado throws at drivers all weekend. Wallace grew up on ovals, where the surface stays put, and you can trust your braking points. Coronado strips that away from him completely.

Then there are the blind spots. Around the military hangars, spotters straight up lose sight of the cars. That forces guys like Wallace to leave extra cushion near the walls to stay safe. SVG doesn’t need that cushion; he’s made his whole career attacking exactly those kinds of corners.

Furthermore, Shane van Gisbergen now has the longest active top-five streak on road courses in the Cup Series with seven consecutive races. And the gap between him and the second driver is considerable. Michael McDowell has a streak of three straight top-five finishes on road courses, while Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs are tied at two.

Bubba Wallace is Putting the ‘Month of Hell’ Behind Him

Wallace has another reason this weekend feels heavier than usual. May wrecked his team. Four finishes of 22nd or worse in five races, even though the speed was there almost every single time.

Michigan is where it finally turned. Bubba Wallace got caught up in a Lap 83 wreck that Carson Hocevar started, somehow came out clean, then switched to the high groove late and drove his way up to third, just 12 seconds back of winner Denny Hamlin.

Still, he wasn’t buying the feel-good story.

“We’ve gone through a month of hell,” he said. “It’s hard to be happy with a third place because this is what should be happening when we’re executing like we are.”

After climbing out of the car, he walked straight over to Hocevar and gave him the same line Kevin Harvick once gave him: stop hitting things, and the finishes take care of themselves.

That third at Michigan bought Wallace’s team a 49-point cushion above the playoff cutline. He’s going to need every bit of it heading into a track built for someone else to dominate.