Denny Hamlin couldn’t believe ‘balls’ on Brad Keselowski hitting Christopher Bell so hard at Bristol

Brad Keselowski went for it on the final lap of Saturday’s Bristol Night Race. Running second behind Christopher Bell, Keselowski tried to execute a bump-and-run in Turns 3 and 4.

It did not work, as the hit to Bell’s bumper only propelled the No. 20 Toyota forward. Bell took the checkered flag, while Keselowski settled for his second runner-up finish of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. Keselowski did everything he could to get by Bell; Denny Hamlin couldn’t believe he “had the balls” to hit Bell as hard as he did.

“I thought as hard as Brad hit him, I thought he’d wrecked him,” Hamlin said on Monday’s Actions Detrimental podcast. “I could not believe he had the balls to hit him that hard because that easily could have been — not a bump-and-run — but like a dump. First, Bell missed Turns 1 and 2. That’s what allowed him to even get close. I was like, ‘Oh my God, no, Christopher Bell missed the corner!’ He missed the corner and missed the bottom and allowed Brad to get right to him. At that point, C Bell was like, ‘Oh, no, I let him get close enough to hit me.’

“How he held on, I don’t know. This Next Gen car, man. It just tells you the advantage the leader has when second place hits you that hard and it doesn’t even move your car hardly — yikes.”

Brad Keselowski came close to winning at Bristol

Keselowski’s hit had significant force behind it. Would it had been a clean racing move had it worked?

“Not if he would have spun out, no. That would have been not good,” Hamlin said. “… I think Brad even admitted, he was like, ‘When I hit him, I was like, oh, no, I didn’t mean to hit him that hard.’ That was as hard as I’ve seen someone get hit on corner entry and not spin out.”

Keselowski’s winless streak now goes beyond 50 races, his last victory coming in May 2024 at Darlington Raceway. He was leading at Bristol before the final caution came out on Lap 488-of-500, which did allow him to come down pit road for fresh Goodyear tires. Keselowski chose the outside on the last restart, a decision he wishes he could have back.

Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar moved up in front of him, and Bell raced to the front and never gave up the lead. Keselowski ran Bell down and had he had one more lap, perhaps it would have been him celebrating in Victory Lane instead.

“Just the story of our season, just a 50/50 shot on the restart and I got the lane that couldn’t launch,” Keselowski told NBC Sports. “Just frustrating. We had a great car, great strategy, put ourselves in position to, if not to win, at least have a really, really solid day, and on that last restart, [we] just rolled the dice and didn’t get anything good.”