NASCAR Cup Race Results from Phoenix, Christopher Bell Wins

But in the end, the cream rose to the top as Bell won his third of four races in the 2025 Cup Series schedule.

“How about that one, race fans?” cheered Bell after winning the Shriners Children’s 500. “Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that was about as ugly as it gets. You put the red (option) tires on, and you’re like, ‘Alright, what I don’t want to happen is go like 20, 30 laps and get a yellow.’ Then that happened. And then we went like 10 more laps, we had another yellow, and it was just all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were just racing really hard there at the end coming to the line.

“JGR ran 1-2, how about that?”

The Joe Gibbs Racing teammate that he battled to the line was Denny Hamlin, who fell short by 0.049 seconds, the second closest finish in Cup history at Phoenix.

“Great job by the Sport Clips team,” said Hamlin. “They just got better and better as it went. Pit crew did a phenomenal job to keep us in the game when we had a bad stop in the middle and made it up at the end. It was the first time we were able to get some clean air all day, and obviously our car was really fast. I really kinda wanted it to stay green there, because I thought in the long run was really where we were going to excel, especially on these tires, but we got a good restart. The 5 (Kyle Larson) gave me a great push on the frontstretch on the restart, and then down the backstretch, so I kinda had position on the 20, but I knew he was going to ship it in there. If he had to use me, he could, and obviously we kinda ran out of racetrack there.

“Great finish. Gr eat job by the whole Joe Gibbs team to give us some fast cars.”

Kyle Larson (-0.097 seconds) had the best seat of that side-by-side battle, but neither Bell nor Hamlin would slip or make a mistake. Larson would have to settle for third, tying his best finish of the season from Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“I felt like I made the correct decisions there,” Larson shared. “I thought being patient trying to keep them side by side down the back was good. I could have shot to the bottom, but I feel like I would have wrecked everybody there. Good to finish third.”

Josh Berry (-0.308 seconds) records his fourth career top five after finishing fourth, with Chris Buescher (-0.569 seconds) in fifth.

William Byron (-0.656 seconds), the only other race winner in 2025, finished sixth and retains the championship points lead. Alex Bowman, Kyle Busch, Zane Smith and Chase Elliott competed the top 10 results.

After a strong qualifying effort on Saturday by Spire Motorsports, it was a struggling Sunday afternoon as all three cars failed to complete all the laps with Michael McDowell as the highest fi nisher in 27th, 22 laps off pace.

The ‘Big One’ wrecked seven cars on Lap 99, including the other two Spire cars and both Cup Series Rookie of the Year contenders Shane Van Gisbergen and Riley Herbst.

Katherine Legge would officially be credited with a 30th in her NASCAR Cup Series debut.

Cup teams will stay in the western deserts as they race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next weekend. The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube will air on FS1 and PRN starting at 3:30 p.m. ET on Mar. 16.

NASCAR Cup Series Unofficial Race Results
Shriners Children’s 500
Phoenix Raceway
March 9, 2025

1. 20, Christopher Bell, winner

2. 11, Denny Hamlin, -0.049 sec.

3. 5, Kyle Larson, -0.097 sec.

4. 21, Josh Berry, -0.308 sec.

5. 17, Chris Buescher, -0.569 sec.

6. 24, William Byron, -0.656 sec.

7. 48, Alex Bowman, -0.952 sec.

8. 8, Kyle Busch, -1.101 sec.

9. 38, Zane Smith, -1.288 sec.

10. 9, Chase Elliott, -1.378 sec.

11. 1, Ross Chastain, -1.628 sec.

12. 3, Austin Dillon, -1.814 sec.

13. 22, Joey Logano, -2.017 sec.

14. 42, John Hunter Nemechek, -2.129 sec.

15. 60, Ryan Preece, -2.565 sec.

16. 10, Ty Dillon, -2.631 sec.

18. 43, Erik Jones, -2.870 sec.

19. 2, Austin Cindric, -2.977 sec.

20. 45, Tyler Reddick, -3.143 sec.

21. 47, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., -1 lap

22. 16, AJ Allmendinger, -1 lap

23. 99, Daniel Suárez, -4 laps

24. 51, Cody Ware, -6 laps

25. 54, Ty Gibbs, out (accident)

26. 4, Noah Gragson, -9 laps

27. 71, Michael McDowell, -22 laps

28. 12, Ryan Blaney, out (engine)

29. 23, Bubba Wallace, out (accident)

30. 78, Katherine Legge*, out

31. 88, Shane Van Gisbergen (#), out (accident)

32. 41, Cole Custer, out (accident)

33. 6, Brad Keselowski, out (accident)

34. 7, Justin Haley, out (accident)

35. 19, Chase Briscoe, out (accident)

36. 77, Carson Hocevar, out (accident)

37. 35, Riley Herbst (#), out (accident)

(#) denotes rookie
* denotes open car