When Tyler Reddick joined 23XI Racing earlier this year alongside Bubba Wallace, there were expectations for a power team at hand, considering Reddick’s impressive performance last season. At the moment, the #45 driver has already secured his spot for the postseason with a win, and a winless Wallace is still in the playoff spots on the basis of his points. But co-owner Denny Hamlin is not all that happy.
Advertisement
The team hasn’t really been living up to the mark that Hamlin would like it to. Recently, while speaking about his drivers’ struggles on the race track, Hamlin shared how frequent mistakes have held both teams back from reaching their potential.
Denny Hamlin says mistakes are ruining the 23XI drivers’ chances
The JGR driver was questioned by his co-host about Tyler Reddick missing the commitment cone trying to enter the pits. Subsequently, Hamlin responded, “Hand in face emoji. I just, geez, just they really struggled to finish.”
He added, “Kind of like what they’re capable of. Now again they did it at Pocono but the mistakes and the mistakes is just killing the #23 and #45. And I saw the #23 had a long pitstop.”
“I mean you can overcome that it was under green as well. But he lost a few positions but then just kind of started deleting some spots late in the day. So but it looked like they maybe lost the handle of their car as well. Which we did in the middle but then towards the end. We got our handle back where it needed to be.”
Tyler Reddick won stage one comfortably but had a disappointing result
During the first stage of the race, everything went according to plan for the 23XI Racing team and Hamlin. Both of Hamlin’s cars were right ahead of him, with Reddick leading the field and Bubba Wallace in second place. As the flag dropped signifying the end of the first stage, it was the two Toyotas that were dominating.
Soon after when the second stage went underway, just after three laps, it was Bubba Wallace who was leading the field. Unfortunately for him, he had a delayed second pitstop which saw him rejoin the grid in the 5th place. Thereafter, both 23XI Racing cars started falling behind. In the end, it was RFK’s Chris Buescher who won the race, just ahead of Denny Hamlin, with both Reddick and Wallace finishing outside the top 10.
