Tyler Reddick now seems to be taking a different route in his championship ambitions. He has admitted that the battle for the regular-season Cup championship has changed significantly.

This comes after Denny Hamlin reduced Reddick's advantage to just 19 points. Hamlin secured consecutive wins at Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono, cutting into Reddick’s once-commanding 122-point lead.

“Yeah, it is,” Reddick said when asked about the growing pressure.

“It was nice while it lasted, I guess, to be in that spot where we didn’t have to hurt ourselves in the following stage by going for the stage points. We’ll see how it plays out at San Diego and Sonoma. Billy [Scott] and (everyone) are going to have some tough decisions to make when it comes to strategy at the stage ends, who is going to go for what.”

The stage-points battle became especially important after Reddick finished second at Pocono behind Hamlin.

Hamlin earned 67 points, while Reddick collected 35. The large gap came because Reddick failed to score any stage points, something that is now coming back to haunt him.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Reddick added.

“If we do a good job of bringing good speed to San Diego, like we bring to the Chicago street course, we should put ourselves in position to hopefully net even or gain a little bit of ground.”

Reddick seems to be pinning his hopes on the street courses in Chicago and the new race in San Diego. There is no historical data for the San Diego event, meaning it could be a wide-open battle. Chicago, however, paints a different picture.

Chicago Numbers Favour Tyler Reddick

If Tyler Reddick wants to put an end to Denny Hamlin's streak, the numbers suggest the Chicago street race is the place to do it.

The Chicago street course has been one of Reddick's strongest tracks. Across the last three races there, he has finished fourth, second, and third, never ending the event outside the top five.

Hamlin's record has been far more mixed, with finishes of 11th, 30th, and fourth over the same stretch.

With the regular-season title race tightening rapidly, Chicago could offer Reddick a chance to halt Hamlin's momentum and regain some breathing room in the standings.

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Written by

Uday Jakhar

Edited by

Pulkit Prabhav