Denny Hamlin reacts to Tyler Reddick's final lap charge on Alex Bowman, hitting the wall

Tyler Reddick looked as if he had the jump on Alex Bowman on the final lap of Sunday’s Grant Park 165 Chicago Street Race.

Reddick, on slicks as opposed to Bowman on the wet-weather tires, was the faster car and was less than a second from getting to Bowman’s bumper. But that didn’t happen, as Reddick made contact with the wall in Turn 5 and lost all his momentum. Bowman increased his lead over Reddick and took it home to the start/finish line.

23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that Reddick was likely a victim of thinking of the remaining passing opportunities he would have to get past Bowman.

“It’s a bummer,” Hamlin said. “I thought he was going to get there, especially as quickly as he was running him down. But yeah, fundamentals is the — to finish first, you must first finish and so I think it’s just he’s gonna be tough on himself, but he’s trying everything he can. He’s probably thinking at that point he’s got two more legitimate passing opportunities. He wasn’t gonna be close enough off of Turn 5 where he hit the wall to get him into Turn 6.

“So, there was two more options, likely two options. One was going to be into Turn 7 over the bridge and the other was gonna be the very last corner because you would think there was another one in Turn 11 there, but the bottom was wet, and he was on slick tires and that probably wasn’t gonna work unless he was willing to clean Alex out. So, I think that he probably panicked on counting down passing opportunities left and he was down to two. … It would have been a fight for sure. The 48 would have likely blocked and tried to keep him in the wet but the 45 was coming so quickly, I just think he was gonna get there with a shot in the last few corners but obviously didn’t work out.”

Tyler Reddick comes up short in Chicago Street Race

Instead of notching victory No. 2 this season, Reddick suffered heartbreak for the second consecutive race. He narrowly missed out on the win at Nashville last Sunday, failing to get past Joey Logano on the final lap.

“Yeah, I’m upset,” Reddick said after the race. “I was catching Alex by a large margin there. I don’t know. That puzzles me. I clearly just screwed up. Trying to stay in the dry groove and I had more than enough room of dry groove. Yeah, I cut the wheel a little too hard — just not focused enough, I guess. I knew I was going to get to him and the earlier I could get to him the more options I would have, and it was going to get a little bit more slick off line beyond turn 8.

“Yeah, just didn’t even give ourselves a shot to race him unfortunately. I hate it. Not what this Jordan Brand Toyota Camry is about and what this team is about. Just got to start capitalizing on these ones.”