Tyler Reddick: Pocono runner-up 'not enough' in points battle with Denny Hamlin

Tyler Reddick finished second in Sunday's Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway but still lost 32 points to race winner Denny Hamlin in the Cup Series standings. 

Reddick has held the series points lead since the outset of the season and led Hamlin by a whopping 129 points after the May 10 race at Watkins Glen. But Hamlin's three consecutive victories have cut into Reddick's advantage, and Reddick's first finish outside of the top 15, a 35th-place result at Michigan last week, didn't help. 

Reddick did make up ground during the final laps of Sunday's race, as he pitted late in the race's final run and mounted a charge to finish runner-up. 

Tyler Reddick: 35 points not enough

"Almost worked," Reddick told Prime Video. "Everyone's racing hard for track position. Some of it's bad luck, I guess, where you catch cars. It's a bummer. 35 points just aren't enough right now. We knew qualifying was going to be tricky coming into this. Scoring the points we did just didn't get the job done."

The good news for Reddick is that the next two Cup races are on the road courses of Naval Base Coronado and Sonoma. Reddick won at Circuit of the Americas on March 1 and should have the upper hand on Hamlin, a notoriously average to below-average road racer, over the next two weeks. 

Regardless, the fight for the points lead and No. 1 seed in the Chase should be a thrilling one over the final 10 weeks of the Cup Series regular season.