Hamlin vs. His Own Driver: The Chicagoland Storyline to Watch This Sunday
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing Race Preview - where we set the stage for Sunday's race with the storylines, the grudges, and the moments that actually make you want to watch. This week: NASCAR comes back to Chicagoland Speedway for the eero 400.
The Short Version
NASCAR's Cup Series returns to Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday, July 5, for the first time since 2019, and the green flag drops at 6:00 PM ET on TNT. The biggest story heading in has nothing to do with the track and everything to do with the points battle: Denny Hamlin took over the championship lead from his own driver, Tyler Reddick, at Sonoma last week, then went out and won the pole for Chicagoland on top of it. Add in a $1 million bracket challenge, a rookie who just knocked off his own teammate for a win, and a track nobody in the field has ever raced in a Next Gen car, and this is a Sunday with a lot more going on than one race.
The Biggest Storyline: Hamlin Is Chasing His Own Team's Driver
Here's the part that makes this a genuinely strange championship fight. Denny Hamlin took the points lead away from Tyler Reddick at Sonoma by a single point, 719 to 718, even though Hamlin finished 26th after getting spun off the nose of Carson Hocevar's car and tearing up his splitter. Reddick had it worse. A power steering failure dropped him multiple laps down and buried him in 36th. Somehow the gap between them barely moved.
What makes it strange is who Hamlin is racing. He is a co-owner of 23XI Racing, the team Reddick drives for, while Hamlin himself drives the number 11 for Joe Gibbs Racing. So the points leader is, in a very real sense, chasing down his own employee for the title. Hamlin has said he would rather see the standings flip, with Reddick winning the driver's championship while he collects the owner's trophy instead. Neither of them is backing off. Reddick has five wins this season, including the Daytona 500, and led the standings for most of the year, at one point by 129 points. Hamlin has four wins of his own, three in a row at Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono, and hasn't lost a full-length oval race since early May. A day before this article published, he beat Kyle Larson to the Chicagoland pole by four thousandths of a second, his fourth pole of the year and 52nd of his career, passing Ryan Newman for ninth all time. Whatever hesitation Hamlin feels about racing his own driver, it is not slowing him down.
Drivers to Watch, and Why
Denny Hamlin is the obvious name. Points lead, fresh pole, and a stretch of ovals where nobody has touched him since Texas in May. If Chicagoland behaves anything like the intermediate tracks he has been winning on, he starts Sunday as the guy to beat.
Tyler Reddick needs a bounce-back after the worst finish of his season, and he needs it against a car owner who also happens to be his direct championship rival. There is no better motivation in the garage right now than a 36th-place run and a one-point deficit.
Kyle Larson and William Byron are worth watching together. Both are Hendrick Motorsports teammates, both are drawn against each other in Round 2 of NASCAR's In-Season Challenge, a $1 million bracket that advances winner-take-all based on who finishes better each round. Larson and Byron both scored strong runs at Sonoma, and now one of them has to eliminate the other at a track where Chevrolet hasn't won since Alex Bowman in 2019.
Corey Heim is the name fans are still buzzing about. Two weeks ago at Naval Base Coronado, the 23XI development driver in the number 67 beat his own teammate, Reddick, for his first career Cup win, giving 23XI its first 1-2 finish as an organization. Reddick's reaction said it all: he called his own late charge for the win "not right" against a teammate. Heim is back in the car this weekend, and 23XI looked fast in Friday practice, with Riley Herbst and Bubba Wallace running 1-2 and all four 23XI Toyotas inside the top eight.
What to Watch For on Sunday
The biggest wild card is that nobody in the current Cup garage has ever raced a Next Gen car at Chicagoland. The track hasn't hosted a points race since 2019, before the Next Gen car existed. Every crew chief is working off either seven-year-old data from a completely different car, or the handful of extra laps a few teams got at an April tire test. The asphalt is also seven years older and rougher, with a steep drop in Turn 1 and a dip through Turns 3 and 4 already unsettling cars in practice. Lower banking than tracks like Charlotte or Texas narrows the passing groove, so a driver who gets the setup wrong could spend all day stuck in traffic with nowhere to go.
Drivers who have never started a Cup Series race at Chicagoland before:
— Racing Territory (@RacingTerritory) June 30, 2026
Christopher Bell
Josh Berry
Chase Briscoe
Austin Cindric
Cole Custer
Todd Gilliland
Noah Gragson
Corey Heim
Riley Herbst
Austin Hill
Carson Hocevar
John Hunter Nemechek
Tyler Reddick
Zane Smith
Shane van… pic.twitter.com/X7FvDFSimZ
Tire wear is expected to run "Charlotte-ish," according to crew chiefs after Friday practice, which means most teams will want four-tire stops all day and will need to manage their eight-set allotment carefully. A rash of early cautions on an unfamiliar, bumpy surface could easily throw that math off and force teams into strategy they didn't plan for. Weather adds another layer: Sunday's forecast calls for a real chance of afternoon showers in the Chicago area, so a rain delay or a shortened race is on the table.
Don't sleep on the undercard, either. The playoff cutline is razor thin, with Austin Cindric holding the 16th and final spot by just 12 points over Erik Jones, who fell out of the field after Sonoma. Shane van Gisbergen, fresh off winning at Sonoma for the second straight year, jumped three spots into 14th and now sits 36 points clear of the cut. A single bad Sunday at an unpredictable track could shuffle that picture again before teams even get to the true playoff push later this summer.
Here's what the data says heading into Chicagoland.https://t.co/TYxftBY6Pr
— Hendrick Motorsports (@TeamHendrick) June 30, 2026
The Fan Debate: Who Should You Actually Want to Win?
Here's a fun one to argue about at the watch party. Denny Hamlin says he wants Tyler Reddick to win the driver's championship. But Hamlin is also out there every week racing to beat Reddick himself, and he is currently doing it better than anyone else in the garage. So which is it? Is Hamlin really rooting for his own driver, or is competitive instinct going to win out every single Sunday regardless of what he says in interviews? And zoom out further: between Reddick's points lead for most of the year, Heim's shocking first win over his own teammate, and 23XI running 1-2-3-4 in Friday practice, is 23XI Racing quietly the best team in the sport right now, ahead of even Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick? Pick a side. NASCAR fans never need much of an invitation.
The Bottom Line
Chicagoland is back after six years away, nobody has raced it in a Next Gen car, and the sport's tightest championship battle in years just got a new setting with zero history to lean on. Watch Hamlin try to extend a hot streak against the very team he owns, watch Reddick try to answer back, and watch Corey Heim try to prove Coronado wasn't a fluke. Whatever happens, somebody is going to have a very awkward conversation in the 23XI hauler afterward.
Got a driver in this fight? Rep them before the green flag drops Sunday. Grab the Hamlin win shirt if you're riding with the points leader, the Reddick hat if you want the champ back on top, or the Heim shirt above if you're all in on 23XI's breakout year. Chevy fans can pick a side in the Hendrick showdown with the Larson hat or the Byron hat. New storylines drop every Saturday, right before green flag.
