Tyler Reddick became the first driver to win the first three races of a NASCAR Cup Series season, defeating one of the greatest road racers in modern NASCAR history on Sunday.
Redick took the victory over Sean van Gisbergen on Sunday at Circuit of the Americas. After winning the Daytona 500 a week ago in Atlanta, Reddick became the sixth driver in NASCAR history and the first since Matt Kenseth in 2009 to win the first two Cup races of a given season.
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Now he has his own record.
“In this day and age of Cup Series, it’s very difficult to win the Daytona 500. It’s very difficult to survive in the racetrack. [Atlanta] We can do this. To be able to stop Sean at the end of that game and get that three-fight win streak, yeah, we had to overcome the obstacles that we did, especially the last two weeks, to be able to do that, it seemed like a perfect fit.
Reddick only led on the final lap of the race to win the Daytona 500 as 37 of the 41 cars in the race officially crashed. Redick has led 111 of 366 in the last two games.
He won at Atlanta despite losing the entire right front fender in a crash with less than 50 laps to go. But he fought his way back to the front of the field and took the lead two laps later, ahead of teammate Bubba Wallace, and finished in green-and-white checkered after a late caution flag.
Michael Jordan celebrates with Tyler Reddick after Redick won his third consecutive race to open the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
(James Gilbert via Getty Images)
On Sunday, he started from pole position, with van Gisbergen starting in 13th. The former Australian Supercars champion has been incredibly dominant since his move to NASCAR. He made his first start at the Chicago road course in 2023 and won five of six road races during the 2025 Cup schedule, many of which came in dominant fashion.
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He didn’t win the road race? Redick starts the COTA race from pole position.
As the lap count dwindled on Sunday, Reddick said he had to remind himself that he didn’t need to win by a landslide. He just needed to finish ahead of van Gisbergen.
“It’s really important not to make mistakes because who knows, Sean might have been playing a game, right? Like just stepping back a little bit and seeing if I’m going to burn myself and then back him up at the end of the game,” Redick said.
“There’s a lot going on there. He did really well in the road course. Even when I pulled away, right, it was like, okay, I just didn’t let myself think it was over until it was.”
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Reddick enters the season with eight career wins and is tied with Alex Bowman and Kyle Petty on the NASCAR Pro Cup Series wins list. With his win at COTA, Reddick has more wins in just 221 races than drivers such as Sterling Marlin, Clint Bowyer and NASCAR Hall of Famer Donnie Allison.
Despite a winless 2025 season, this winning percentage ranks among the best among all active drivers. After three wins and a berth in the 2024 championship, Reddick became one of only two drivers to reach the 16-driver playoffs in 2025 without a victory.
However, the lack of a win is an anomaly given Redick’s underlying numbers. It looks even more out of place now. Only seven drivers finished with a higher top-five finish and average finish than Reddick did a season ago, and no driver completed more laps.
In 2026, Reddick will continue to win in an era of NASCAR where no one can dominate. Current Cup Series cars are built using spec parts that each team purchases from the same suppliers. There is less room for advantage than ever before.
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That might make Redick’s streak even more impressive. His 23XI Racing co-owner Michael Jordan made it clear he expected him to continue the record heading into Sunday’s race. Just like he was at Daytona and Atlanta, Jordan was in Austin on Sunday.
“He reminded me earlier this week that he can shoot threes. His expectations were not low today either,” Redick said of Jordan’s second consecutive three-game NBA Finals win. “I’m really happy to be able to live up to the standard that he set for us and to be able to play three games in a row. It was really cool to share that moment with him.”
