Tyler Reddick finished fast to claim second place in Pocono on Sunday and he still leads the NASCAR Cup Series points standings, but it was just not enough.

The 30-year-old 23XI Racing star made an incredible start to the 2026 season to build a healthy advantage in the hunt for postseason Chase positions.

But now that lead is almost gone as Joe Gibbs Racing superstar Denny Hamlin - who just also happens to be 23XI co-owner - closes fast.

Hamlin has reeled off three consecutive wins, the latest in Sunday's Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono, and he now trails Reddick by only 19 points as the season moves on to San Diego next weekend.

It is very tight at the top and Reddick, who was closing fast on Hamlin as his bold pit stop strategy almost paid off, admitted he was not satisfied by the end result.

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Reddick strategy almost paid off

Speaking to media, he explained: "It almost worked. When you go that long, it all kind of falls to how you catch cars. I think we definitely lost a second and a half there when we just took the tires and caught the 9 and 17. Lap down cars side by side. We definitely lost time, a couple spots there.

"Everyone is racing hard for track position. Some of it’s just bad luck, I guess, where you catch cars."

Reddick is of course still sitting pretty at the top of the standings, but he is keen to wrap up a postseason berth as soon as possible.

"Yeah, it’s a bummer. I mean, if the 11 wasn’t the winner, you could consider this a good day. 35 points just aren’t enough right now, so…," he added.

"We knew qualifying was going to be tricky coming into this. We weren’t able to get safe points. I know we finished second. Scoring the points we did just didn’t get the job done."

The moment that really cost Reddick at Pocono

Reddick also pinpointed the one big moment which really cost him dear, revealing: "Restarts were good for us most of the day. We had that one restart there. We were ahead of the 11, ahead of the 24, 9, all those guys. He went into one, felt squishy, soft. It wasn’t down. I would have crashed if not.

"Have to figure that one out. In a super critical moment, we needed to maintain on the restart, and we had a terrible one. That put us behind those guys, and that was it."

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