Is Denny Hamlin preparing for a possible case of friendly fire? He, along with Michael Jordan, set up 23XI Racing, which is currently dominating the field with Tyler Reddick. The latter has managed to win four of the first six races, and there is nothing that seems to be stopping him. He has excelled on multiple types of tracks, which is great for Hamlin’s reputation as a team owner, but could it hurt his title chances as well?

Denny Hamlin assesses ‘tough’ situation with Tyler Reddick

Reddick won the season-opener at Daytona, proving himself on the Superspeedway. Later, while all kept their eyes out for Shane van Gisbergen while racing down at COTA, it was once again the #45 car that took the checkered flag. A similar trend continued at Darlington. While Denny Hamlin noted it would be tough to race against his own driver later in the season, he is backing himself to take up the challenge.

“Does it change my perception of our strength? Not really,” he said on the Actions Detrimental podcast. “We’ll see where we’re at 20 weeks from now. I think that’s all that really matters, right? It’s that 10-race stretch, and I think the tracks line up really nicely for us and certainly for him as well. But it’s hard to keep the gap that he’s got.”

The Chase format does ease it up for Hamlin and his crew slightly. However, as he mentioned, Reddick has built a huge gap at the top with his four race wins because of the new points system. Moreover, former driver Kevin Harvick also claimed earlier that one would have to be within the top-6 to have been in a realistic contention for the title, despite the top 16 drivers qualifying for the Chase.

One would naturally think that having a top driver piloting for one of the Big 3 would give 23XI and Tyler Reddick an upper hand in performance, right? However, as Denny Hamlin revealed, the team is functioning mostly on their own. And he is ‘proud’ of that.

Hamlin on Reddick winning without JGR’s assist

It would seem rather simple for the 23XI crew to be inspired by one of their co-owners, especially when he’s running in such a competitive state. After Denny Hamlin won at Las Vegas, he set a certain benchmark of performance, heading into the next race at Darlington. It would have been natural for 23XI Racing to take some inspiration from the setup that the #11 team used on their car. Or perhaps use the same setup, making certain tweaks.

However, the team decided against this, as Hamlin revealed on his podcast:

“To me, it’s proud because it’s very easy to just, ‘Well, the #11 car’s had success at Richmond, we’re just going to put in his setup, and we’ll figure out how to drive it, and we’ll fine-tune it for ourselves.’ It’s when you have to come up with the answer yourself from the very from scratch. That’s like, ‘Wow, this team is really taking the next step,’” he said.

As Tyler Reddick revealed earlier, he has been making the most out of the racing simulator in the ‘AirSpeed’ race shop. Drivers usually learn a lot before a certain race using such state-of-the-art simulators, which certainly is helping his season.

Although there have been quite a few sloppy moments so far for Reddick and the #45 team, their dominant start has cemented their presence on the field for the remaining season. Hamlin missed out on the NASCAR Cup Series title by a whisker last year; he will be hoping to claim it back in 2026. However, to get there, he will have to outpace his own driver, Reddick. While many have raised questions about his approach to racing when it comes to overtaking a 23XI driver, Hamlin has guaranteed his focus is only winning on Sundays and will be hoping to do the same this weekend at the Martinsville Speedway.