Tyler Reddick had everything he needed but time to win the Cup Series race at Chicago on Sunday. When the caution flag flew late in the race, the No. 45 team made the bold decision to pit from third position to gain fresh tires and extra fuel. He restarted the race from 13th place with 12 laps left. In the next few laps, he put on a masterclass that moved him back to third place.
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But unfortunately, the race came to an end before he could challenge Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen for position. In his post-race interview, he was asked how he had planned to beat van Gisbergen had he come within range of the former Australian Supercars champion. Reddick’s response was a lesson learned from watching the Xfinity Series race on Saturday.
Van Gisbergen had forced his way down the inside of Connor Zilisch in the final lap of the race to secure victory. It was a move that bordered on unethical racing and drew a lot of questions on whether it was fair. But considering that NASCAR let it play out, Reddick said that he would have adopted similar means to win the race had it come to that.
In his words, “We can all speculate, but it didn’t come together. Obviously, I saw what Shane was willing to do to win the race on Saturday. For us needing a win to lock ourselves into the playoffs, I would have raced really hard because I think he would have done the same. But it didn’t happen. But we can all dream and speculate what it could have been.”
The mistakes that made Reddick lose valuable time
If not for the Cody Ware caution that ended the race, Reddick might have caught up to Gibbs and finished as the runner-up. But he admitted that van Gisbergen was a bit too far ahead of him to catch. That gap could have been reduced if certain mistakes had been avoided.
For one, Reddick got stacked up in traffic after changing his tires. The time he spent trying to pass the cars was a big waste of resources. He also lost time trying to avoid the wrecks that came late in the race and suffered damage to his left rear, causing him to lose a bit of braking ability.
At the end of the day, these few seconds could have been the difference between his result and being the winner. Reddick is now fifth in the regular season standings. But his lack of wins has put him 13th in the playoff standings.
