Reddick wins at Indy to cap big month
INDIANAPOLIS — Tyler Reddick this month already grabbed his first Cup career victory, qualified for NASCAR’s playoffs and signed a big contract with a new team.
Now he’s got a victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Reddick closed the best month of his career with an overtime win Sunday on the road course at Indy to give him two victories in the last five Cup races.
“So, I’m not going to lie, I watched a lot of racing at this venue when I was a kid growing up,” Reddick said. “A lot of incredible drivers have won at this racetrack and it’s really cool to be part of the drivers who have won here and I’m really happy about it.”
Reddick broke through for his first career victory on July 3 at Road America in Wisconsin, then announced nine days later he was leaving Richard Childress Racing in 2024 to drive for 23XI, the team owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan.
Win No. 2 seemed to be easily within reach as Reddick was comfortably out front for 15 late laps when debris from Christopher Bell’s car brought out the fourth caution of with only six laps to go.
It set up a restart with three laps remaining and Reddick lined up alongside road course ace Chase Elliott, who briefly got past Reddick for the lead until he was spun for another caution that sent the race into overtime.
Reddick on the next restart had to hold off defending race winner AJ Allmendinger, who also won Saturday in the Xfinity Series. But Allmendinger was physically exhausted and struggling because his cooling device had not worked the entire race, and he hardly challenged Reddick at all.
Allmendinger collapsed when he climbed from his car. His wife and team personnel were seen draping his head in wet towels and dumping water over him before Allmendinger was taken to the care center.
So it was Ross Chastain who made Reddick claw his way to the Yard of Bricks.
Chastain missed the first turn completely and used the access road to return to the racing course ahead of Reddick and the apparent new leader. Reddick chased him for an entire lap around the 2.439-mile course and finally reclaimed the lead in time to lead the entire final lap.
“I couldn’t believe he got ahead of me,” Reddick said. “I was kind of waiting to see if he was going to have a penalty because I didn’t want to move him out of the way and make his race worse than what it was. But hey, we made it work.”
NASCAR after the race penalized Chastain for using the access road, which left him 27th.
Reddick’s win made him the first RCR driver since Kevin Harvick in 2013 to win multiple races in a season, and multiple victories for RCR in a season for the first time since 2017.
Verstappen’s win adds to his F1 lead
Formula One champion Max Verstappen overcame a spin and his worst starting spot of the season to win the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest, Hungary. His eighth win of the season pushed Verstappen’s lead to 80 points over Charles Leclerc as F1 heads into its mid-season break.
Mercedes placed both its cars on the podium for the second straight race; seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton carved his way from seventh to a second-place finish, teammate and pole-sitter George Russell was third.
Carlos Sainz Jr. finished fourth in another disastrous day for Ferrari. Leclerc was sixth, one spot behind Sergio Perez of Red Bull.
Verstappen’s eighth win of the season was the 28th of the Dutchman’s career.
“Who would have thought when we woke up today we’d get this result? Amazing,” Verstappen told his team.