NASCAR insider sounds alarm for 23XI Racing: 'They've fallen off'

23XI Racing seemed primed to become one of the premier teams in the NASCAR Cup Series after a successful 2024 campaign. However, 2025 has been a rocky road for the team led by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin.

Tyler Reddick was the shining star last season, winning the regular season title and making it to the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway. As 2025 arrived, Reddick looked to build on a tremendous season, Bubba Wallace appeared ready to take another step forward, and 23XI expanded to a three-team operation, adding Riley Herbst in the No. 35 to the mix.

Thus far, it’s been a mixed bag and then some for 23XI this season. During the latest episode of The Teardown, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic sounded the alarm for the Toyota team, wondering how they’ve fallen so far over the past couple of months.

“23XI, they’re weird, man. They’ve fallen off,” Gluck stated. “What’s up with that? I don’t get that at all. Reddick might’ve had the fastest car at Texas, he just never got the track position. But then he told me at Texas, ‘Oh yeah, I feel like what happens, the speed we’ll have at Texas will translate to Kansas, even though they’re different tracks,’ and then they just didn’t really show anything.

“I thought, you know, I guess Bubba was up there. When he had his issue, he was maybe sixth or something. He had a penalty and then he was gone, you know, which happens a lot these days, right? If you have a setback, you’re kind of done, unless it’s early in the race, then you could overcome it. But yeah, I mean, Reddick — we never really saw what we’d expect out of them, right? So, I don’t really know.”

Alas, Reddick’s performance has been the most surprising of the three. While he’s sixth in points, with four top tens and three top fives through 12 races, he’s yet to get to Victory Lane. Until he does, it doesn’t matter how many solid finishes he racks up — the No. 45 needs to show the game-changing speed they had in 2024.

On the other hand, Wallace has accumulated four top tens and two top fives, leading 103 laps in 12 races. However, he has 4 DNFs on the year, and he’s still searching for his first win in quite some time. His last trip to Victory Lane came back in September of 2022 at Kansas.

Finally, Herbst has had a rough go of it in his first full season in the Cup Series. The Las Vegas native is currently P32 in points, and he’s yet to notch his first top ten in the No. 35 Toyota. His performance as of late doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Herbst finished P27 this past weekend at Kansas.

It isn’t hard to see why Jeff Gluck is growing concerned with 23XI Racing’s performance in 2025. Whether it’s Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace or Riley Herbst, one of their wheelmen needs to rise above and get to Victory Lane sooner rather than later. It’s evident they’re in a funk, but how they get out of it remains to be seen.