Bubba Wallace beats Kyle Larson to win Brickyard 400 in double overtime

Bubba Wallace entered Sunday's Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the playoff bubble, and facing a winless streak that dates back almost three years.

However, Wallace made sure he didn't have to worry about any of that anymore, besting Kyle Larson in double overtime to win the Brickyard 400. It was a tense fight to the final with all of the leaders low on fuel, but Wallace made it last, capturing his first win since Kansas in September 2022. While snapping a 100-race winless streak, he also earned 23XI Racing its first victory as an organization this year.

Bubba Wallace, 23XI Racing Toyota

Larson finished second after failing to defend his 2024 victory in the Brickyard 400, while Denny Hamlin finished third in a backup car but won as a team owner.

The RFK Racing duo of Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top five. Todd Gilliland, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, and Carson Hocevar filled out the remainder of the top ten.

In the battle for the $1 million in-season bracket challenge, Ty Gibbs claimed the big prize over Ty Dillon, finishing 21st while Dillon was 28th.

Stage 1

The race got underway with Indiana native Chase Briscoe leading the race. In the early running, Ross Chastain slammed the wall after getting hit by Michael McDowell. Chastain's race was over, leaving him with a 39th-place finish and back-to-back DNFs.

While most of the field came down pit road, the Penske cars of Joey Logano and Austin Cindric stayed out, along with Josh Berry. McDowell suffered a flat tire on the restart, but managed to get it back to the pits.

Those who stayed out went on to short-pit the stage, clearing the way for Briscoe to take the stage win over Wallace and Byron.

Stage 2

The strategies continued to split throughout the field as Ryan Preece led a handful of cars who stayed out. Hocevar led the way off pit road with a two-tire call, while Briscoe restarted back in ninth.

There was a significant stack-up on the restart, damaging several cars, but not enough to cause another yellow. Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Cody Ware were all forced to pit under green for repairs. Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez, Riley Herbst, and in-season challenge finalist Ty Dillon also sustained nose damage that impacted the performance of their race cars.

Preece pitted from the lead 14 laps into the stage, but found himself in a bad spot after a slow stop by the RFK Racing team.

Cole Custer then suffered a flat right-rear tire, foreshadowing for what was to come for the Ford camp. Cindric was leading the race when he also lost a right-rear tire, making it back to pit road without the need of a yellow.

The next caution actually flew for Erik Jones, who had a strong day until the wheel separated from the car and the No. 43 slammed the wall with just ten laps to go in the stage.

Briscoe was about to pit, but he managed to avoid a penalty as he drove back onto the track with pit road closing. Ryan Blaney led the way for the mad dash to the end of the stage after choosing to stay out, winning Stage 2 over Larson and Hamlin.

However, Blaney was running on fumes, and the Penske team was forced to pit while pits were closed, or they would have been at risk of running out on track.

Stage 3

Larson led Hamlin at the start of the final stage as drivers positioned themselves for the critical fuel window ahead of them.

As stops began to cycle through, Larson came out behind Logano, as well as 23XI teammates Wallace and Reddick. They executed the undercut perfectly, using clean track and short fuel stops to leapfrog their way to the front.

However, Penske's Indianapolis misfortune continued as Logano's right-rear tire went down while he was leading the race. He made it back to the pits, handing the effective race lead to Wallace.

But Wallace had to wait for Blaney to pit with 18 laps to go before he could actually be the race leader. Meanwhile, Larson was in hot pursuit, slashing his lead from six seconds to just under four.

But with just six laps to go, NASCAR called a caution for raindrops. The brief shower forced race control to red-flag the race, bringing the field down pit road with just four laps left in the crown jewel event.

On the first overtime restart, Wallace cleared Larson, but a wreck on the backstretch involving Zane Smith and Tyler Reddick forced the race into double overtime. He again had to face Larson, but once again managed to clear the Hendrick Motorsports driver.

From that point, 23XI Racing was just praying they had enough fuel as Wallace took the white flag and claimed victory at Indianapolis. 

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