Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell secured the first Cup Series Race win for Toyota this season at Phoenix on Sunday. He won the race despite being at P20 in the final restart. On the caution-free final 92 laps, the stage two winner of the Shriners Children’s 500 was able to get to the front swiftly and to the lead for one last time after his teammate Martin Truex Jr. was forced to pit.
The win at Phoneix was impressive for Bell considering he has had two bad Championship-4 experiences at the track in the last two seasons that saw car issues ruining the races. The win will give him the necessary boost for the remainder of the season and playoff charge, as he is looking to secure the third consecutive Championship-4 entry in the Next-Gen era.
The No:20 team’s win also marked the end of Chevy’s dominance at the start of the season. Chevy teams had won the first two Superspeedway races and the last week’s race at Las Vegas in convincing fashion and none of the Toyota drivers had won poles before Phoneix. But this weekend belonged to JGR and Toyota.
Denny Hamlin won the pole on Saturday and started at the front alongside his JGR teammate Ty Gibbs . All four JGR drivers led laps on Sunday. Ironically Bell with 50 lead laps was the one to lead the least, while Hamlin led 67 laps, Gibbs led 57 and Martin Truex Jr. led 55 laps. Another Toyota driver, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, led 68 laps.
Christopher Bell credits the No:20 team for his win
Bell is overjoyed after the win and gave the credit for the win to his Crew Cheif and the whole No:20 team. He was pleased with the superior car he got and added that he is super proud of how things turned out for him on Sunday.
Man, this one feels really good. Just a credit to (crew chief) Adam (Stevens), man. Adam, my engineers… all the mechanics on this thing. You don’t get cars like that very often, as you know. Just super, super proud. Proud to be on this 20 car. This Rheem Camry was amazing today. I feel like we have capability of running races like this a lot. Hopefully, this is the first of many this year. Bell said via NASCAR.com.
Bell would now be hoping to use the early momentum he got and secure more wins before the regular season comes to an end and place him in a position to easily survive the potential chaos in the post-season. He has again proved he will always be one of the most reliable guys on track for Joe Gibbs.
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