23XI Racing president Lauletta: 'We're looking at every aspect' to improve execution as playoffs near

When 23XI Racing launched its own pit-crew program this season, team president Steve Lauletta said there was bound to be a learning curve. The organization had used over-the-wall crews contracted through fellow Toyota team Joe Gibbs Racing for its first two seasons, but forged its own pit-road path ahead of the 2023 campaign.

That route hasn’t been without hitches, as evidenced by a crucial late-race miscue last weekend at Michigan that derailed a strong victory bid by its No. 45 team and driver Tyler Reddick. Pit-road issues in preceding weeks at Richmond and Nashville had also hurt the overall results for 23XI’s No. 23 team and playoff hopeful Bubba Wallace.

With three weeks remaining until the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs begin, Lauletta said that pit-stop performance remained a topic under evaluation.

“Of course, we’re always looking at that,” Lauletta told NASCAR.com by phone Wednesday afternoon. “We’re looking at every aspect of what happens on the weekend, and it’s been unfortunate that we’ve had a number of execution issues, whether on pit lane or on the race track. You know, it hasn’t been one thing consistently, but the consistency has been, we show up with really fast race cars and haven’t gotten to the finish and earned the finishes that we deserve, and so we’re always working on how to fix those things.”

23XI Racing aims to get back on track this weekend in Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, IMS Radio, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. Reddick is the defending race winner, having prevailed last year at Indy in his final season with Richard Childress Racing, and 23XI will field a third entry for Japanese road-racing ace Kamui Kobayashi.

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Reddick said after the Michigan miscue, “We‘ve definitely got to get better there. We‘ve got to improve.” Those remarks came a day after the race when Reddick issued a fiery rant over the team’s radio communications after an improperly fastened wheel forced the No. 45 group to make a lengthy extra stop.

Lauletta said he shared the frustration but also suggested that the new pit-road program is still growing in its debut season.

“You know, this is the first year that we’ve had our own pit crews at 23XI versus what we did the first two years in our alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, so we also have to give ourselves a little bit of runway that it’s not an overnight solution to any problem, and when you start something from scratch, there’s going to be some bumps in the road,” Lauletta said. “And so we’re doing our best to limit those. Unfortunately, they’ve come up in times when we’ve been in position to win races. It’s still frustrating if it’s meaning you’re going from a 15th-place finish to a 25th-place finish, but when you’re in position to have a really, really great day, that’s when we’ve got to make sure we’re doing everything we can to address any sort of issues.”

Reddick had virtually clinched a playoff spot with his victory earlier this season at Circuit of The Americas, and Wallace has built a cushion in a quest for his first postseason berth — 58 points above the provisional elimination line. Having the 23XI teammates both reach the 16-driver playoff field was a preseason objective, Lauletta said, but that intention dates back to last year when the team expanded to a two-car operation with former Cup Series champion Kurt Busch joining the fold.

“I mean, it was a goal we set for last season, to be honest, in our second year with adding Kurt in the 45,” Lauletta said, mentioning Busch, who made 20 starts in the No. 45 last year before a concussion ended his season. “We got halfway there, and then turned the reins over to Bubba for the owners’ championship and won another race and made the Round of 8. So we felt like going into this year, getting both the 45 and the 23 into the playoffs was a goal that we should focus on. Hopefully, we’ve got three weeks to make the goal a reality and accomplish that and then put our head down for 10 strong weeks in the playoffs.”