AVONDALE, Ariz. — Christopher Bell prevailed in a dramatic side-by-side finish with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin — the second-closest finish in Phoenix Raceway history — to earn Bell his third consecutive NASCAR Cup Series victory this season, a record in the sport’s Next Gen Car era.
Bell’s No. 20 JGR Toyota went high alongside Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota as the two cars dueled it out in the final two corners of a two-lap shootout on the one-mile speedway. The 30-year-old Oklahoman claimed the historic win by a mere .049 seconds, marking his second straight victory in this spring race at Phoenix.
“How about that one, race fans? Oh my gosh!” a jubilant Bell shouted to the Phoenix crowd after collecting the winner’s checkered flag at the start-finish line.
“Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red [option] tires on, and you’re like, all right, what I don’t want to happen is go 20, 30 laps, get a yellow. That happened. Then we went 10 more laps, had another yellow.
“It was all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were racing really hard coming to the line. JGR ran 1-2 — how about that?”
Hamlin’s runner-up finish was disappointing in the moment but still his best of the early season in the No. 11 JGR Toyota, earning the team its first 1-2 finish of 2025. He led the white-flag lap but couldn’t fend off Bell, who drove the fastest car of the day, leading a race-high 103 of the 312 laps.
“Great job by the Sport Clips team, it got better as it went,” Hamlin said. “Pit crew did a phenomenal job keeping us in the game. We had a bad stop in the middle but made up for it in the end.
“[The end] was the first time we were able to get some clean air all day, and our car was really fast. I really wanted it to stay green because I thought that’s where we’d excel, especially on these tires. We got a good restart – the five [Kyle Larson] really gave me a good push on the frontstretch and down the backstretch. I had position on the 20, but I knew he was going to send it in there if he could. We just ran out of racetrack. But great finish.”
Team owner Joe Gibbs joked afterward that having his two drivers battle for the win and finish 1-2 was a huge positive, but it had him on pins and needles during the closing laps Sunday.
“It can be a tense Monday meeting if it doesn’t work out,” he said with a laugh.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson claimed third place, with Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s Chris Buescher rounding out the top five. It was the best finish of the year for Berry and came on a busy afternoon where teams had to strategize using two kinds of tires — option (red) or primary (yellow) — for only the second time in Next Gen points-racing competition.
Goodyear allotted each team two sets of the option tires and six of the primary, with the idea that the red option tires were quicker but presented a challenge due to their quicker wear. The initial response to the extra element in the race was positive.
“Everything went according to plan at Phoenix, and the option tire worked very well,” Goodyear’s NASCAR project manager Mark Keto said after the race. “It gave teams a chance to vary their strategies and maximize their effectiveness to gain track position over teams that were on the primary tires.
“Teams were also able to manage their options once they got track position and make them last longer into a run. Overall, we were very happy with the balance and strategy of the prime/option tire setup and how it added to the racing all day.”
The tire option played into the race, with RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece, for example, switching early to the red tires and ultimately advancing more than 25 positions on track to lead 34 laps. Winning crew chief Adam Stevens said after the race that a lot was learned about the tires and hoped the series would be open to using them again. NASCAR will hold a closed tire test Monday at Phoenix.
Hendrick teammates William Byron and Alex Bowman finished sixth and seventh, followed by Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch, Front Row Motorsports’ Zane Smith, and Hendrick’s Chase Elliott, rounding out the top 10. It was the third consecutive top 10 for two-time series champion Busch and a season-best finish for Smith.
“It was just crazy there at the end,” Byron said of the race strategy. “We restarted 21st and got into the top 10 pretty quickly. I feel like we probably used up a lot of tire on the reds to get those last few spots, so it was hard to get much more.
“I’m happy with it. The No. 24 Chevrolet team put together a good weekend. We learned a lot and got a solid finish, so that’s something to be proud of.”
Katherine Legge, a sports car race winner and former Indianapolis 500 starter, finished 30th on the 37-car grid in her NASCAR Cup Series debut, driving the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet.
The British driver became only the eighth woman in NASCAR’s modern era (1972-present) to compete in the sport’s highest level, and the first since Danica Patrick raced in the 2018 DAYTONA 500.
One-mile tracks like Phoenix are not typically known for big multi-car accidents, but the “big one” in the desert occurred early in Sunday’s race. Spire Motorsports’ teammates Justin Haley and Carson Hocevar, along with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe, made heavy contact racing four-wide out of Turn 2, ultimately collecting and eliminating five other cars from the race.
Despite the early end to his chances, Haley was impressed with the softer option tires.
“I wish I would have been on the option tires the whole time and everyone else on the primaries,” Haley said. “They just make you feel like Superman. I like the tire. I honestly feel like we should go to them everywhere. They make the cars drive a lot better. I don’t know if that’s what you want, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
Bell now heads to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas high banks next week, hoping to match a milestone set by NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, who is the only driver to win four of a season’s first five races, doing so in 1992.
Byron leads the championship standings by 13 points over Bell as the NASCAR Cup Series returns to competition Sunday in the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Larson is the defending race winner.
Source: Holly Cain | NASCAR Wire Service
