Race Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
Overview:
Jenson Button finished 18th in his NASCAR Cup Series debut Sunday at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. The 2009 Formula One world champion qualified 24th for the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix and kept his No. 15 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang relatively clean throughout the 68-lap race around the 3.426-mile, 20-turn road course. Button was joined on the grid by fellow F1 champion Kimi Räikkönen and the duo spent much of the race in close quarters. Räikkönen qualified just ahead of Button in 22nd, but Button got the better of Räikkönen in the race, finishing 11 spots ahead of the 2007 title winner.
Jenson Button, Driver of the No. 15 Mobil 1 Ford Mustang:
“It was an emotional rollercoaster. At first, it was terrible. I mean, I must’ve been last by the end of it, and I was just like, ‘Everyone, go. I just need to drive and find a rhythm.’ I’ve never gone through a corner two wide, so often. And trying to place my car in the right place – I just got it wrong every time. Normally, if you’re a little bit slow through a corner, nobody tries to overtake you from the outside – because they’re not going to make it all the way on the next one. But here they do, because they get a wheel inside for the next one, and if you turn in, you turn around. The first stint was really bad. It was embarrassing for me. I was like, ‘Alright guys, we need to pit, freshen the tires and I need some air. I need some fresh air.’ I got that. The pace was good, consistency was good. I was really happy, and passed a few cars, which was nice. We got a little bit unlucky with the safety car because it was just two laps before our window. Pitted, then the next stint was mayhem. We also made a couple of changes that just didn’t work. Big oversteer – went from the car feeling great to really difficult to drive. I also had a massive whack from Kimi (Räikkönen), and it fell off after that. The car wasn’t quite right. Every time I turned in, the rear tires would chatter, then immediately to oversteer. It was really difficult, but toward the end, we made some good calls stopping and putting on fresh tires. I enjoyed the last three restarts – got good placement and good overtaking moves from the outside. Finished 18th after almost stopping because I had heat exhaustion. It was so hot. I don’t have a fan in my seat, which really didn’t help me too much. It was so hot, I thought I was going to faint in the car. So, I stopped twice for a minute. They put ice on me, gave me loads of water, and I went back out. I was so close to getting out of the car because I thought I was going to faint. I must’ve drank eight-nine bottles of water during the race. The team kept me calm, and it’s the reason why we got a good result in the end. So, I was happy.”
Notes:
● This was Button’s sixth overall start at COTA. He made five Formula One starts at the track between 2012-2016 with a best finish of fifth in the 2012 United States Grand Prix.
● Button won 15 grands prix in a nearly two-decade F1 career (2000-2017), including a dominant six-win campaign in 2009 that netted him the championship. Upon retiring from F1 in 2017, the British driver has taken on a variety of challenges with NASCAR being the latest. It began with sports cars in the Japanese Super GT Series’ GT500 class, where he won the 2018 championship. He then ran a five-race stint in the 2018-2019 FIA World Endurance Championship, a drive that included the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Button has even competed in off-road endurance racing, running the Mint 400 and the Baja 1000 in 2019.
● Tyler Reddick won the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix to score his fourth career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his first at COTA. His margin over second-place Kyle Busch was 1.411 seconds.
● There were eight caution periods for a total of 17 laps.
● All but 10 of the 39 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Ross Chastain leaves COTA as the championship leader with a 19-point advantage over second-place Busch.
Next Up:
Button’s next NASCAR Cup Series race is the Grant Park 220 on July 2 on the streets of downtown Chicago. The 100-lap race around the temporary 2.2-mile, 12-turn street course begins at 5:30 p.m. EDT and will be broadcast live on NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Button’s final Cup Series race of the 2023 season is the Verizon 200 at The Brickyard on Aug. 13 on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Race Recap: Circuit Of The Americas
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Race Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing (Toyota)
SHR Race Finish:
● Kevin Harvick (Started 29th, Finished 13th / Running, completed 75 of 75 laps)
● Chase Briscoe (Started 19th, Finished 15th / Running, completed 75 of 75 laps)
● Aric Almirola (Started 39th, Finished 30th / Running, completed 74 of 75 laps)
● Ryan Preece (Started 26th, Finished 32nd / Accident, completed 68 of 75 laps)
SHR Points:
● Kevin Harvick (4th with 186 points, 25 out of first)
● Chase Briscoe (23rd with 96 points, 115 out of first)
● Aric Almirola (28th with 70 points, 141 out of first)
● Ryan Preece (29th with 69 points, 142 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Harvick finished fourth in Stage 2 to earn seven bonus points.
● Briscoe finished ninth in Stage 2 to earn two bonus points.
● Preece finished 10th in Stage 1 to earn a bonus point.
Race Notes:
● Tyler Reddick won the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix to score his fourth career NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his first at COTA. His margin over second-place Kyle Busch was 1.411 seconds.
● There were eight caution periods for a total of 17 laps.
● All but 10 of the 39 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Ross Chastain leaves COTA as the championship leader with a 19-point advantage over second-place Busch.
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Richmond 400 on Sunday, April 2 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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RCR NCS Race Report: Circuit Of The Americas
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Transcripts: Tyler Reddick - Press Conference - COTA
THE MODERATOR: We'll continue with Q&A for our winning driver, Tyler Reddick.
Questions.
Q. On Friday you seemed pretty optimistic, pretty confident about it. Could you talk about then being able to pull that off, and certainly restart after restart after restart... Pretty tough to maintain.
TYLER REDDICK: It was. I honestly wasn't doing the best job on those restarts. Few of the times giving up one, two spots. All but that very last one I'm having to battle for position down into the S's, which is a very tricky area of the racetrack, considering track limits, all those things. One bump, one thing goes wrong, you might be getting penalized. Definitely putting ourselves at risk there.
If I have one thing looking at the whole weekend I wish I could have done better would have been qualifying and cleaned up those restarts a little bit.
Yeah, there is things to learn, for sure. But it all went really well. The last one, got off of turn one without any real threats.
Q. During the Saturday media sessions, while talking about the newcomers, you said hopefully we race with respect out there, it often goes away on restarts and finishes. You were in front of it all, but what are your thoughts on what happened behind you?
TYLER REDDICK: I have no idea. I was just focusing on my restarts and what I had going on.
Obviously there was a lot of cautions at the end. I mean, the way that things kind of have progressed, the front and rear bumpers of this car are really resilient. You can really hit someone pretty hard without knocking the nose of your car out. The rear bumpers are really tough, too.
We saw that at the Clash, people being able to lean on each other front to rear. It kind of brings that to light at the end of these races.
But seriously, though, you look at turn one here, turn one at Indy road course, they're very inviting corners with a lot of room. It's just a product of restarts and the nature of NASCAR racing and how aggressive all the drivers are. Someone's going to be on the short end.
Q. What is your vibe in the car? Are you nervous? Was your stomach worse today during the last restarts than a week ago?
TYLER REDDICK: Thankfully things had returned to normal this morning of all things. Good timing. Feeling a lot better.
Yeah, the only thing that was really on my mind today was just how to kind of hang on. We've been having some issues with the Coolshirt plugging in. Unfortunately today from lap one we could never get it plugged in, so it was a little bit warm in the car. The shirt got pretty hot.
I was able to hold on till the end. Thankfully we had one last overtime finish or I may have been in trouble.
Q. Are you calm?
TYLER REDDICK: At times certainly. Before we had all the cautions with 10 to go or whatever, I had gotten back around William, settled in. Definitely hot, but I was comfortable with the car and everything. Certainly we got to the end, I got warm again. My ice had melted. So, yeah, I was getting a little hot in the car.
By the time we were taking the restart, kind of gotten back to where my heart rate and calmness needed to be to focus.
Q. (No microphone.)
TYLER REDDICK: I wouldn't say 'nervous'. Just the stress was high in the car today. Just circumstances. But thankfully not too high. Still able to execute and get the job done. I didn't quite get every restart done perfectly, but we got the ones that mattered: the last one.
Q. In regards to the start to your season, Billy and Denny talked about the bad optics of having your points position, but that you felt you still had speed. From your perspective, has it been frustrating? Disappointing? How have you handled the beginning of the year?
TYLER REDDICK: I mean, it's just racing honestly. That's all it was. It's just how racing can be sometimes.
You look at what happened, it wasn't like we flat out sucked this weekend. It wasn't this or that. It was just circumstances.
Some of it was mistakes that were made or things we could have definitely done better. But they were all things we could learn from.
In the grand scheme of things, when you have the entire year in front of you, it's good to learn from things early in the year. If it comes later on down the road, I'd rather have these things around early than later on.
For me, it didn't really affect me. From my perspective in the shop, didn't seem to be affecting the team. We just kept focusing, Next weekend we're going to bring the best car we can, start over, go from there.
The only frustration I would say that we had was when we would have a bad weekend or something go wrong, it would really screw up our qualifying metric for the next weekend, put us in a tough spot to qualify well and start better. That was the only part of it that was slightly frustrating, but nothing crazy.
Q. How validating is this to get this victory for 23XI, given how much confidence and belief Billy and Denny had? How did you handle the emotional side of the intense battles you had today?
TYLER REDDICK: Yeah, you just got to remove emotion from your thought. You're being emotional in a moment, you can't have the mental clarity to get the job done. You just have to remove all that from your brain.
As much as, yes, it can be frustrating to have caution after caution, almost made it back to the start/finish line, it didn't go our way. You just have to remove all that from your brain. It's done and over with. You have to reset, be ready to go for the next restart, because everybody behind you is grinding their teeth, doing everything they can to get an edge on you.
You can't be feeling bad for yourself. You have to get back to work and execute and just do it again.
Q. There were obviously a lot of green-white-checkered attempts at the end. Would you be opposed to NASCAR stepping in and limiting the green-white-checkereds like they did back in '05?
TYLER REDDICK: No, we'd be robbing the fans of a finish. That's what they deserve. They deserve a good finish to the end. They deserve to see us make it back to the white flag. Whatever happens after that, yeah.
I think the rule the way it is is the way it should be. The fans pay a lot of good money to come out here, watch a good race, a good finish. Deserve to put that product out there for the fans.
Q. You were obviously the fastest driver and car this whole weekend. Your comments on bringing that speed to Toyota, which last year obviously struggled on the road courses, what you'll bring to all the road courses for the rest of the season?
TYLER REDDICK: What was the last part? The rest of the road courses?
Q. What talent you're going to bring to the rest of the road courses this year.
TYLER REDDICK: What talent?
Q. Speed.
TYLER REDDICK: Speed.
Yeah, hopefully it applies. Obviously every road course is kind of its own animal. But the braking zones we have here, there's a lot of time to be made and lost in the braking zones here.
I feel like when you go to Indy road course, some of those similarities apply. Not as much elevation, gain or loss. The Chicago street course, the layout it has. Being really good in the braking zones, not making mistakes and going wide will be really critical with the tight corners and the tight narrow confines on the street. You miss a braking zone, there's nowhere to go, you're going to go into a wall.
Things that we were strong with today hopefully will apply in some ways to those other places. In no way do we get super comfortable or content with how we do. We're going to: How could we be better, what things can we clean up. I definitely could have done things better at the end of this race on restarts.
Certainly to go from where we were at the test in January, the tire test here, how we stacked up against the 8 car, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric in the 2, to make the gains that we did, make our cars better, it was certainly a really good sign.
Obviously I would love to see all the Toyotas get better. Certainly we're all going to work together, share notes, hopefully get the rest of them up there soon. Good step in the right direction.
Like I said, it was a really big point of emphasis for myself coming in here to try to help Toyota to get better on the road courses. Yeah, I'd say that was a success.
Q. It seems like a while ago, but the middle of the race, towards the end, you and Byron had that battle. Separate strategies. Now that you've seen them in action, what is your opinion on having the no-stage cautions at the road courses?
TYLER REDDICK: Well, it certainly allows the race to play out more naturally, which I feel like in the spirit of road course racing, in my opinion, that's what it should be more about. We had the natural cautions towards the end there with people having tire failures and issues to bring out the cautions to have the exciting green-white-checkered finishes.
Like we saw in the Truck race, like we kind of saw in the Xfinity race, I think allowing the race to play out naturally, to me it's what road course racing is about.
You look at other forms of motorsport that has road course races, not always is there an exciting finish at the end. The stage racing, obviously...
From my perspective, I enjoyed it more today. It was about maximizing your pace on the racetrack and minimizing the mistakes because depending on what strategy you had, if you made a mistake, you're going to be costing yourself track position as the race just played out.
Q. This probably seems like a long time ago, but what was going through your mind early in the race when you made the first pit stop and were mired deep in the field?
TYLER REDDICK: Some concern just the initial first couple laps. Joey got back. Austin Dillon got by. Recentered myself. I remember AJ literally getting stuck behind Aric Almirola yesterday, stopped on the racetrack, fought back from it and won.
Thinks the Cup Series, not the Xfinity Series. I looked at how that played out, thought we could make it happen. For the most part, as the race was playing out at the end, it was the right calls, the right strategies I think.
Having a strong car really helps, whatever strategy you go with, work. But with the pace falloff and everything, the strategy we were on was going to work out better. Yeah, it was enjoyable for sure.
Q. Was it weird and/or extra motivating to have the 8 car that you're battling for the win?
TYLER REDDICK: Kyle races with a lot of respect. I know he gets a bad rap from a number of fans out there. Pretty much from day one coming into the Cup Series, Kyle and I have raced really, really well around each other for the last couple of years.
I knew he was going to give everything he had. I knew that team would. But certainly you heard him talk about it, right, just the respect in the garage not being what it used to be. He's one of the few drivers that certainly really still races with that honor and integrity and wants to race fair, race hard, race clean.
I knew he wasn't going to do anything too crazy. There were other cars lined up behind me during the day that I was concerned about a dive bomb or a bump or something like that.
When you got one of the best in the business behind you in Kyle, you know you are going to get raced really hard and you know you have to execute perfectly, and it's going to be really, really clean.
THE MODERATOR: Good luck in Richmond, Tyler.
TYLER REDDICK: Thank you.
NASCAR PR
THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by the winning crew chief and the winning owner from 23XI. Billy Scott the crew chief and Denny Hamlin the owner. Congratulations, gentlemen, on the big win here at COTA.
We'll get right to questions.
Q. Talk a little bit about being able to reach this point today after the rough start that you've had to the season.
BILLY SCOTT: Yeah, it was a rough start in some respects. Certainly on the finishing positions. But I think the important thing is that we always knew it was there for speed. So I think we always had the speed there. Daytona, crashed racing for the lead. Vegas, had an incident running inside the top five.
I think it was just a matter of time. It's not like we were wrecking out of races, running in the back. Yeah, nice to finally finish it off, though.
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I mean, it looks bad on the scorecard for the first three races, but he kind of explained it. We knew it was too small of a sample size to honestly judge where they were at. We knew that they were fast, knew it was a matter of time before they kind of marched their way up towards the front.
It's good for them to finally get the finishes they deserve, even though at the beginning of the year they had finishes that probably they didn't.
Certainly they got an opportunity to build a lot of Playoff points between now and the start of the Playoffs and hopefully make a run.
Q. Denny, you had probably a good view of all the craziness there in the three overtimes. How would you describe it? Do you feel fortunate that Reddick won that race? How rare is it to hold everybody off for four restarts?
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I mean, certainly it's a big pressure situation probably for Tyler because you've been the dominant car all weekend, you've had the field covered, and you know at that point when you're leading the race, it's your race to lose.
There's not much to gain. There's only a lot to lose if he doesn't execute, right? For him to manage those pressure situations, execute on restarts, it's huge.
I mean, trust me, you get back where I'm at in the middle of the field and it's just chaos, right? It's just a matter of whether the lane you pick, there's a car sitting in the middle of the track or not whether you're going to get through.
It seems like the racing is a lot cleaner in the first few rows. The one time the strategy worked out perfect, started third on the first green-white-checkered, got a caught tire. Just bad luck and whatnot.
I think this says a lot about Tyler's poise. It's what I saw all week in his performance, not only the simulator, he just slows everything down. He's running fast, but he's doing it in slow-motion, which is just a sign of someone that's in control.
Q. (No microphone.)
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I don't know if it's good chaos or not, right? We had two laps to go two hours ago. It just felt like it just kept going on and on.
Again, I don't know what we do about it. I'll talk about it tomorrow (smiling).
Q. How validating is this victory knowing what you saw in Tyler long before he got to be in the 45 ride with the circumstances surrounding Kurt Busch?
BILLY SCOTT: Yeah, no, I think it's why they got him, right? We knew what his potential was. Road courses is where he's shown it in the last six, eight months, being pretty dominant on several occasions. We know he's got that ability everywhere. The last two weeks show that. Had a shot to win it coming down to the last green-white-checkered.
Again, it's nice to finish it off here, but that's completely what we knew he was capable of. Expect there's more to come.
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I mean, it's why I went after him as early as I did. I wanted to get the jump on all the other teams because I knew he was going to be the most coveted free agent in a very, very long time. That's why I got the jump on it. It cost me a lot of money to do it, but it pays dividends.
You have to have that driver that you feel like can carry you to championships and wins for decades. I think we have that guy. It's not going to stop at road courses. Dirt racing, short tracks, speedways, he's got what it takes on every racetrack we go to.
Q. Billy, were you planning on three stops the whole time? Was that something where you didn't mean to get off strategy from everybody else?
BILLY SCOTT: Yes, it was most likely three. Not at those particular laps (smiling).
So, yeah, when the yellow come out early, obviously you expect everybody else in a situation like that that's kind of on the fence to do the opposite of you when you've been the dominant car all weekend.
Kudos to Tyler for staying focused. That was really the only time we were back in traffic, and he dealt with it really well. Made quick work of it, kept the car in one piece.
We still thought it was going to work out the best, even without the way the yellows fell. So we did that with the plan of two-stopping from there, right? That still fell into the three-stop strategy window we looked at in the beginning.
Untimely caution right outside the last fuel window that made it more of a close race than we were wanting. But we had already got the lead at that point. Fortunately able to run some heads up and he had speed.
Q. Billy, walk me through your emotions after Tyler crossed the finish line. You seemed almost relieved, got the water bath. What was it like for you? Is it relief? It feels like it's different for you.
BILLY SCOTT: Well, a little bit of everything. Relief, for sure, especially this weekend when you have the dominant car, he's fastest in practice and qualifying. Didn't get the pole there. That's one element of it.
But the other one is just to kind of put that note that everybody is bringing up of the bad luck to start the year, the bad finishes, the bad points position. Everybody's heard all that. The team's had to endure that.
We know where the potential was. But the guys that are working on this car, the guys back at the shop, they don't always get to live it and feel the emotion that we do, know where the potential is.
For that to happen, for him to dominate the race, have to endure those restarts, come home like that, it's just very validating, very rewarding for everybody that puts the work in behind the scenes.
We've wondered where we were at on our road course program now for a while. We struggled last year. To bring him here, that was one of the hopes, too, was that he could help guide us in the right direction. Certainly did.
It's nice when all that comes together.
Q. Billy, obviously you were watching on top of the box. With all the cautions, overtime after overtime, there were some cars that pitted for tires, made their way back up. Ross had gone from spinning to the top five at the end. Did a sense of fear of the cars with new tires overtaking you as the cautions kept coming out?
BILLY SCOTT: No, I think it was more the fear of what level of aggression guys behind us were willing to use.
We felt confident in Tyler's speed, once we cleared him off of turn two, that it was over. But that was a lot of opportunities for people to do otherwise entering one.
For the most part the guys that we were around raced very clean. They gave each other lanes to navigate through there. But it can go otherwise in a hurry.
I think that was the most nerve-wracking part, was getting through turn one.
Q. Denny, I don't know if you heard but Kurt got really emotional and choked up on the last lap of the broadcast, said that the team was in good hands, he was proud to be part of the organization. I was wondering what this moment is like to have Kurt in a different role for 23XI?
DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, I mean, it for sure would be for Kurt. He was supposed to be in this car this year. Obviously with his full-time career being cut short, it's different. It makes you feel different when you see your car going around the racetrack.
As a team, we've been thrown a lot of curve balls. I think we had last year five drivers in our cars, when we had two full-time drivers, and that's all we were planning on.
Kurt has been an integral part of what we do week in, week out. He shows up to practices. He shows up to our debriefs. Really helps with our partners. Just a great asset to our team.
If he can just bring one thought or idea to our drivers in a weekend of something that he sees from the outside, then he's worth his weight in gold to us.
We love having Kurt. He's a great teammate. He really bonds the team. He brings RC cars to the race shop, has the guys involved in doing that. He's still a driver for 23XI and team member for life.
THE MODERATOR: Denny, Billy, congratulations on the big win. Good luck next weekend at Richmond.
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Ford Performance - COTA Post-Race Quotes
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Ford Performance PR
Reddick Earns First Victory for Toyota
Tyler Reddick earned his first win for 23XI Racing and Toyota with a strong performance at Circuit of the Americas. Reddick had to battle through multiple overtime restarts to score the win – the fourth of his career. The California-native led 41 of 75 laps and also won the second stage to earn six Playoff points. In ninth, Ty Gibbs earned his second consecutive top-10 finish.
Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Circuit of the Americas
Race 6 of 36 – 231.88 miles, 68 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, TYLER REDDICK
2nd, Kyle Busch*
3rd, Alex Bowman*
4th, Ross Chastain*
5th, William Bryon*
9th, TY GIBBS
16th, DENNY HAMLIN
17th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
31st, CHRISTOPHER BELL
37th, BUBBA WALLACE
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota Camry TRD, 23XI Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
What does this mean?
“It means the world. This whole 23XI team has been working so hard all winter long to make the road course program better. Was extremely motivated to come in here and prove that performance, too. Just so proud of this Monster Energy Toyota Camry TRD. Toyota, everybody, all the resources they've been putting into this to help turn around the road course program means a lot. I'm out of gas. But I feel a little bit better with Monster Energy.”
How does it feel to win here today?
“It feels good. Unfortunately, we had some problems with the cool shirt – it didn’t work from lap one, and I felt that today.”
Can you talk about those late restarts?
“I really had to dial it up there at the end to get an advantage. I was making mistakes on every single restart. I was able to make it a little better there in the end.”
How satisfying is it to win this early with a new team?
“It means a lot. It does – I’m just gassed.”
TY GIBBS, No. 54 He Gets Us Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 9th
How was your race?
“I’m sure it was entertaining. I just want to say thank you to He Gets Us, Monster Energy, Toyota. We had a really great first half of the race and then we had an issue with our lugnut – lost a lot of time and I got two penalties. I just have to minimize mistakes. We will take it.”
TRD PR
