Bubba Wallace’s Spotter Blames His Own Driver in Fiery Aftermath of Chicago Wreck With Alex Bowman

“I thought we had squashed our beef, but clearly we’ve not,” Alex Bowman was visibly enraged in a post-race interview in Chicago. The Hendrick Motorsports driver was on a mission to defend his title, but his old rival, Bubba Wallace, got in the way. Both of them clashed in the final laps while fighting for a top-ten spot. Even as Bowman got away in the end, Wallace could not. Not only did his finish turn worse, but his spotter also turned against him.

The 23XI Racing driver has seen a mixed bag of results in 2025. Bubba Wallace has clinched 6 top tens and 3 top fives, improving on his 2024 performance, but still remains winless and 3 points away from the playoff cutline. And when he came side-by-side with Alex Bowman, another driver right on that cut line, he might have gotten a little reckless. At least that’s what his spotter, Freddie Kraft, thinks.

Bubba Wallace draws flak for his actions

Well, at first, it looked like a restoration of the 2024 Chicago fireworks. Bubba Wallace turned sideways off the nose of Alex Bowman’s No. 48 Chevrolet early in the 2024 contest. After that, Bowman won the race, and Wallace door-slammed Bowman on the cooldown lap, landing a $50,000 penalty. Well, the severity of the 2025 event did not reach that level, but the two drivers traded a lot of paint.

The duo collided multiple times in a fierce battle for 7th place. Eventually, Bowman made contact with Wallace from behind, exiting Turn 2 at Lap 70 in the 75-lap affair, spinning Wallace down DuSable Lake Shore Drive. The fallout hurt the No. 23 Toyota team quite a lot, as Wallace ruined a solid points day. That is why Bubba Wallace‘s spotter, Freddie Kraft, shed light on how unnecessary his driver’s actions were.

In a recent episode of ‘Door, Bumper Clear’, Kraft explained how Wallace was at a disadvantage and why it was not Alex Bowman‘s fault.“We were the ones on old tires, we were hanging on… I think Bubba thought he was clear. Obviously, there was no spotter over there. I was trying the best I could off of television… I think Bubba just thought he was clear and moved up. Alex did not right hook us, I saw some people say that. Bubba just kinda of cleared himself on Alex and got himself turned around.”

“Last year, when they got into us, you saw that, we were gonna have a top ten run there last year, and Alex kind of dumped Bubba,” said Kraft, highlighting the history between the two starting at Chicago in 2024. However, this time was different, and Kraft could see it coming. He continued, “Once I saw how he raced him into 8, I was like, Oh, this is probably gonna get a little ugly. It’s just hard racing…I don’t think anybody had any ill will. We raced the hell out of him, and we came out of it looking like idiots at the end of the day because we ruined our own day… That’s also the guy we’re racing for one of the last playoff spots. So you’re gonna race him hard, but I thought it was kind of a losing battle…  Alex had 26-lap better tires than we did… We were running 6th or 7th at the time and finished 28th. We went from +29 to +3 or 4 now.”

The No. 23 Toyota team spotter is clearly not content with the Chicago Street Race. What is more? Bubba Wallace’s team owner may not be happy either.

Riding on the edge

Well, Alex Bowman withdrew any animosity towards Bubba Wallace. “I wish I would have talked to him before all my interviews, because I did all the interviews under the context that he thought I right-reared him and just crashed him,” Bowman said. The two smoothed out their conflict in a post-race interaction, which appeared a bit ferocious at first but ended with an exchange of smiles. However, Wallace may not be able to exchange smiles with his team owner, Denny Hamlin, soon.

The Toyota driver’s last win came in 2022 at Kansas Speedway, and before that in a rain-shortened 2021 race in Talladega. Hence, Wallace is riding quite a big winless streak and also riding on the edge of his team’s expectations. After another lackluster finish at EchoPark Speedway last weekend, Denny Hamlin got serious. Neither Bubba Wallace nor Tyler Reddick has been able to win. But since Reddick is coming off a strong 3-win, championship-contending 2024 season, Hamlin focused more on Wallace.

He clarified his expectations for him: “I just know the resources that we’ve put in at 23XI, and all of our drivers should win. That is the expectation that I have of them. Obviously, it is a results-based business, and if you don’t over time, you consider your options. Overall, I’ve seen enough progression, specifically, from the [Wallace] standpoint, that I can see where this can go. Putting himself in a playoff position year after year is good, but winning makes it better.”

Well, the pressure is building up on Bubba Wallace from various sides. Let us wait and see if the 23XI Racing driver can turn things around in the upcoming races.