Through the first five races of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace was the sport's most consistent driver, finishing between sixth and 11th each race. His worst finish of 11th was the best worst finish among all drivers, and he found himself second in the point standings, even without a top five finish.
However, Wallace has taken a tumble over the past two race weekends. He finished in 34th place, several laps off the lead lap, at Darlington Raceway after being collected in another driver's mess, and he was knocked out at Martinsville Speedway after triggering, intentional or not, an 11-car pileup. He was scored in 36th.
He's now tied for eighth in points with three other drivers, although he comes out as the lowest of the four on the tiebreaker, which is based on best finish. So he is officially 11th, 48 points above the provisional playoff cut line.
Bubba Wallace still NASCAR's stage leader
Add us as a preferred source on GoogleDespite back-to-back disastrous weekends, however, the driver of the No. 23 Toyota is still NASCAR's leader in one key stat, and that is stage points.
We may not like it, but stage points could very well be the difference between a driver getting to the playoffs or missing the playoffs, possibly even between a driver being crowned champion or finishing second.
Wallace has outperformed his race results all year. He didn't score any stage points at Martinsville, which marked the first time all year he was held scoreless in the first two stages of a race, but he still leads all drivers with 60 points, with 20 coming thanks to stage wins at Daytona International Speedway and EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta Motor Speedway).
That's notably two more than teammate Tyler Reddick, the outright points leader who has won four races this year already.
NASCAR.com lists Team Penske's Ryan Blaney as the official stage points leader with 64, but nine of those points came thanks to his runner-up finish in his America 250 Florida Duel race at Daytona International Speedway. So he has only actually scored 55 stage points, which ranks third among all drivers.
Based on race results and results alone, Wallace would only be in a 15th place tie, rather than an eighth place tie, in the point standings, and he'd only be one point ahead of the playoff cut line.
That's a bonus 47-point cushion he has built up simply by running well mid-race, and he's built it up over just seven races. While the old school fans will argue that stage racing makes no sense, the No. 23 team deserves credit for capitalizing on days when things haven't turned out as well as they could have.
In terms of percentage of total points scored, Wallace's 29.13% stage point mark is second highest in the series, trailing only Austin Cindric's 31.54%, and Cindric is nowhere near Wallace in the point standings; the driver of the No. 2 Ford finds himself 18 points below the cut line in 18th place.
Wallace is set to aim to turn things around results-wise in Bristol Motor Speedway's Food City 500, which is set to be shown live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 12, following the off weekend for Easter. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!