Tyler Reddick explains what went wrong in teammate battle for the win

by June 22, 2026

written by June 22, 2026

Tyler Reddick explains what went wrong in teammate battle for the win

Tyler Reddick lost 43 points in the final five laps of the NASCAR Cup race at San Diego, and now moves on to Sonoma with just an eight-point advantage over Denny Hamlin in the championship.

20 of those points went away once he lost the lead to 23XI Racing teammate Corey Heim, but the other 23 were given away after suffering a flat tire, falling back to 25th.

It was an unfortunate end to a difficult weekend for the No. 45 team, featuring a spin in qualifying, repairs that forced them to the rear of the field, a mid-race spin, and a late-race incident while battling for the win.

“The only way this day could have been worse is if, somehow, the contact we had took him [Heim] out of winning this race as well,” Heim told a group of reporters including Motorsport.com.

“I flat-out made a couple of mistakes, and it cost me the lead, then I made some more mistakes trying to get the lead back. Ultimately, today’s result is on me, whether it’s the spin and having to go to the back in qualifying, just the disaster it was today during the race — yeah, just wasn’t a good day.”

Reddick asserted that Heim did nothing wrong and he simply ‘overdid’ it, lamenting: “Just not the way to race a teammate.”