Tyler Reddick was the dominant car at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday (March 26), and to say that it wasn’t an easy victory for the No. 45 team would be an understatement.
That’s because the race went to not one, not two, but three overtimes, and that’s not even counting the cautions beforehand. The field turned into a large-scale pinball machine in turn 1, as the drivers kept bouncing, bumping and spinning off of each other.
With a car as good as Reddick had, a late restart would be a stressful and anxious situation for just about everyone, let alone four late restarts. With continued attempts, laps and advancements from cars with fresher tires, it looked like the universe was doing everything in its power to put a different driver in victory lane.
Against all the odds, Reddick held on to win. It was his third NASCAR Cup Series victory at a road course and his first at COTA.
It cannot be said enough about how impressive it was for Reddick to hold on. Drivers that entered overtime as the leader were 0-for-3 to start off 2023 and Reddick improved it to 1-for-4. Not just in overtime, but in triple overtime.
Since 2017, when stage racing began, there has only been one other Cup race that had three attempts at overtime: The YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in October 2020. Of course, the driver that would’ve won at the scheduled distance (Joey Logano) was unable to seal the deal.
Reddick managed to achieve a feat that hasn’t been seen in more than half a decade.
COTA by the Numbers
88.2%: Chevrolet’s winning percentage (15 of 17) since August 2019 on road courses heading into this weekend.
- The only non-Chevy to win was Toyota driver Christopher Bell, who won at the Daytona International Speedway road course in 2021 and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL in 2022.
- The last time a Ford driver won at a road course was Ryan Blaney at the inaugural Charlotte ROVAL race in 2018.
- Reddick himself had contributed to Chevrolet’s monopoly on left and right turns, as he won two road course races with Richard Childress Racing.
- By winning at COTA, Reddick became the first Toyota driver to lead the most laps and win a road course race since Martin Truex Jr. accomplished it at Sonoma Raceway in 2019.
4: The number of overtime finishes in the first six races of 2023.
- This is the first Cup season since the implementation of overtime to have four of the first six races go beyond the scheduled…
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