Bell roars to third consecutive Cup Series win at Phoenix

Today at 08:19 PM

Christopher Bell won again Sunday in the NASCAR Cup Series.

He and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team made it three straight Cup Series victories by beating out teammate Denny Hamlin in a side-by-side battle to the finish. Hamlin was leading at the white flag, but the two drivers found themselves side-by-side off Turn 2, then drag raced toward the checkered flag. Bell powered around the bottom as Hamlin got too far wide in Turn 4.

Bell led Hamlin and Kyle Larson, who nearly joined the fight in the final corner, to the finish of the Shriners Children's 500. It is the second consecutive win for Bell in the spring event at Phoenix and third straight after triumphs at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Circuit of The Americas.

Bell is the only repeat winner thus far in 2025. He is the first driver in the Next Gen era to win three consecutive races and the first in the series since Kyle Larson did so in 2021.

"Oh my gosh, man," Bell told Fox Sports on the frontstretch. "Whenever you're sitting there dreaming it up, that's about as ugly as it gets. You put the red tires on, and you're like, ‘Alright, what I don't want to happen is go like 20 or 30 laps and get a yellow,’ and that happened. Then we went 10 more laps and had another yellow, and it was just all about who could get clear on the restart.

"Neither of us could, and we were racing really, really hard there coming to the line. JGR ran 1-2, how about that?"

It was a dominant day for Bell, who led a race-high 106 of 312 laps. He also won the second stage.

Hamlin finished second after finally getting track position late in the day. He finished eighth in the first stage and sixth in the second stage.

"A great job by the Sport Clips team," Hamlin said. "It got better and better as it went. The pit crew did a phenomenal job that kept us in the game when we had a bad stop in the middle. They made up for it 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 wanted it to stay green there because I thought the long run was really where we were going to be able to excel, especially on these tires. But we got a good restart. gave me a great push on the frontstretch on the restart and down the backstretch, so I had a position on (Bell), but I knew he was going to ship in there and if he had to use me, he could. We ran out of racetrack there, but a great finish and a great job by the whole Joe Gibbs team to give us some fast cars."

It came down to a two-lap run to the finish. The final caution of the afternoon happened with eight laps to go when Ty Gibbs had a mechanical issue and hit the wall in Turn 3.

Bell and Hamlin restarted on the front row. Josh Berry and Larson restarted on the second row.

Bell, Hamlin and Larson were the top three finishers, with Berry finishing fourth and Chris Buescher finishing fifth. A fourth-place finish for Berry is the best finish for Wood Brothers Racing in its history at Phoenix Raceway.

William Byron, who won the first stage, finished sixth, Alex Bowman finished seventh, Kyle Busch finished eighth and Zane Smith finished ninth. Chase Elliott completed the top 10.

Joey Logano finished 13th. Logano was strong early in the day but was penalized for going below the yellow line on a lap 15 restart. The No. 22 team used the option tire, the softer compound, to regain track position in the second stage but later found themselves at a deficit when using the second set of option tires to start the third stage and most of the field saved their final set until late in the stage.

Ryan Blaney finished 28th after blowing an engine. Katherine Legge finished 30th in her Cup Series debut after an early spin on her own and then spinning again after contact with Josh Berry. The second incident also collected Daniel Suarez and ended her day.

A seven-car crash midway through the second stage ended the days of Shane van Gisbergen, Cole Custer, Brad Keselowski, Justin Haley, Chase Briscoe, Carson Hocevar, and Riley Herbst. It was one of 10 caution flags on Sunday afternoon.

There were 17 lead changes among six drivers.