Bell was good, but not good enough at Martinsville

03/30/2025 08:07 PM

Christopher Bell saw improvement in his performance at Martinsville Speedway with Sunday's second-place run, but it wasn't good enough to challenge Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.

"I don't know what he was doing early in the run, if he was struggling with something or if he was just taking care of the tires," Bell said. "I could keep pace with him, and then I pressured him for a little bit, and then I died. I died probably 20 or 30 (laps) to go, maybe even longer than that, and was in hang-on mode."

Bell led 20 laps early in the afternoon, but Hamlin controlled much of the race, including the entire final stage. But there were three cautions in the final 105 laps that gave Bell and the field a chance to take shots at Hamlin.

On two of the final three restarts, Bell chose the inside lane and restarted behind Hamlin. On the final restart, which came with 75 laps to go, Bell chose the outside lane and went to Hamlin's right side. The No. 20 was able to lead the lap as the two ran each other side-by-side for multiple laps before Hamlin eventually prevailed and drove away.

"But it was a great weekend," Bell said. "A great weekend for our team. This DeWalt Camry was obviously really good on Saturday and that helped a lot of our success today. The pit crew did a great job when it mattered, showed up and gained us spots on pit road. We've got some really good notes and scored some good points.

"I remember coming here in the fall last year talking about how many points I needed, and we just haven't scored points at Martinsville, so it was nice to do that here today."

Bell started from the pole in Sunday's race.

Even if he was able to stay with Hamlin or overtake him early in the final run, he doesn't believe it would have been enough to take the victory. Hamlin's margin of victory on Bell at the finish was 4.6s.

"He beat me by almost 5s, so even if I had cleared him, I don't think that I would have stayed in front of him for the whole run," Bell said. "He drove away pretty good, and I was hanging on there at the end. It's a great day for our company, a great day for Toyota, and definitely the best we've been at Martinsville in a long time, and I still feel there's room to improve. I'm really happy about that."

The effort was the first top-five finish for Bell at Martinsville Speedway since his fall 2022 win at the facility. It was also his first top-five finish since winning at Phoenix Raceway.

"It feels good — second (place) is a finish that you feel a lot better about the next day," Bell said. "I'm happy for Denny and happy Joe Gibbs Racing got a win, but he whipped my butt there that last run. We need to get a little bit better."