Denny Hamlin says 23XI Racing has let Tyler Reddick down with pit crew

Denny Hamlin recognizes that 23XI Racing has let Tyler Reddick down on multiple occasions in the pits throughout 2023.

While Reddick has been fast throughout the season, he doesn’t have the victories, or the finishes he’s expected to accumulate during his first season with 23XI. Some of that can be attributed to trouble on pit road, and Hamlin relented during his Actions Detrimental podcast that Reddick has some reason to be annoyed.

“Tyler Reddick has absolutely, 100% the right to be as angry and frustrated as he is,” Hamlin said. “We have let him down more times than we have brought him up, and we’ve got to do a better job of that. Yeah, it’s frustrating. Trust me, from my standpoint, I saw him and I’m driving the car and I’m thinking, ‘Okay, I’m going to come out here fourth,’ and he says, ‘When this cycles, you’re going to be third,’ and I look at I can see the No. 17 and I can see the No. 19, and I’m just like, ‘Where’s the No. 45?’

“… They deserve better than what they’re getting right now, but I can assure you the guys are probably at the shop right now, trying to figure out how they can get better.”

Nevertheless, Reddick has shown more than capable behind the wheel, and his pit crew will hopefully catch up before the end of the season. If not, it’d more extremely wasteful, as Reddick has already missed out of some great finishes.

Additionally, Hamlin explained that it’s not as simple as hiring and replacing members of Reddick’s pit crew. It’s going to be a process, but 23XI Racing will get there.

“You can’t just pick crew guys right off the couch,” explained the NASCAR veteran. “Because if they were good, then they’d have a job somewhere. The process then of fixing if someone’s got a health issue, and just isn’t 100% as a pit crew guy, or if they need to hone their skills and get more reps, like that is a process. It’s just weighing like, ‘What is this person’s ceiling?’ versus where they’re at now. When you’re building a pit crew department, and this is the first year that 23XI has had their own pit crews, we understand it’s a process. … Do we expand? Do we hire more personnel? Do we hire more than to have three pit crews, and then we’ll outsource one to another team, to let us continue to build our roster, and hone our stuff.

“We figured, at Gibbs, that we would probably get the fifth and sixth best team. That just made sense for Gibbs, but it didn’t make sense for us, because we feel like we have race-winning cars. But it is a process. It takes time.”

Time will tell, but we’re willing to bet Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick’s No. 45 team will figure it out, and when they do, they’ll be one of the best cars on the track, week-in and week-out.

The post Denny Hamlin says 23XI Racing has let Tyler Reddick down with pit crew appeared first on On3.