Confidence is high in 23XI Racing camp after their third straight victory. Denny Hamlin is the living example of this, as he goes on record to make a bold claim about his driver. On his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin did not shy away from placing Tyler Reddick as one of the top-3 finishers from the regular season. Not only that, but he also has a stern message for the entire garage.

“This isn’t a 16th place team that happens to win the first three races. This is a top team. And then the contenders, whom you think that we’ll challenge, are few. They are not the ones that are 60 points back; it’s other people.”

And with those words, it is clear that Hamlin and his team are ready to go to war. It is clear that with three victories, Tyler Reddick is the only driver savoring the advantages of NASCAR’s new points system.

Not only that, Hamlin has no issues betting on his protégé, and he doesn’t care what the odds are. When his co-host went skeptical, Hamlin doubled down on his claims.

“I would give you +150 odds if you wanted to bet the other way. Because winning means that much more this year with the points format where they give you these 15 extra points.

“Anyone with three or four wins in the regular season has got a chunk of points. That’s why you see the gap here.”

However, Hamlin was still being cautious about his words. He does think that it is important not to overreact and create a narrative too soon in the season. But at the same time, he does not find any reason to believe that his team is any less than top-3 on the grid currently.

“I hate creating a narrative so early in the season. And typically the knee-jerk reaction to my name is to overreact. But I don’t see a world where they finish us out of the top-3 narrative in the season, just because of the questionable tracks that they have.

“I don’t know. I think that this is a dream start to the season, obviously. But in this format, man, I don’t know that it would be a reach too early to say it’s a lot for the top 3 in the regular season.”

As it stands currently, Tyler Reddick leads the championship over his teammate by 70 points. He is already ahead of P8 with a hundred points. Not only are his wins coming in clutch, but his stage points are also ample enough to support his campaign in the first three races.

Reddick is already a legend in the history of NASCAR. His third consecutive victory at COTA made him the lone driver in the Cup Series in 77 years to ever win the first three races of the season. And now, he is already looking forward to another record.

Reddick eyes next legendary NASCAR record

When Tyler Reddick visits Phoenix next week, he will be looking forward to joining the likes of Dale Earnhardt Sr., Cale Yarborough, and other legendary names in NASCAR once again.

He already has three wins in a row, and a fourth win will make him the 10th driver in NASCAR to achieve that feat. The momentum is on his side, even though his statistics are not exactly favorable at Phoenix.

With an average finish of 17.6, the odds of him reaching the next milestone look bleak. But that doesn’t deter him from trying his best. He is already doing everything he can.

“We’ve worked hard to kind of rethink how we get around Phoenix, and we’ve just kind of doubled down on the things that we’ve been improving at Vegas. Honestly, I’m very excited to see what kind of pace we have at Phoenix and Vegas as it comes up.”

NASCAR has made multiple changes to the season. For now, Reddick seems to be the only driver who is mastering each and every one of them. At COTA, fans saw the real advantage of the extra 75 horsepower in the NASCAR vehicles. Reddick’s Toyota was flying on the straights. His team did the best they could to tune his car for the race.

As a result, even the road course master Shane Van Gisbergen could not beat Reddick, who left the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevy in his dust.