Winners, losers from Phoenix NASCAR Cup race won by Christopher Bell

AVONDALE, Ariz. — A look at the winners and losers from Sunday's NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix Raceway.

WINNERS

Christopher Bell — He becomes the first driver since Kyle Larson in 2021 to win three consecutive Cup races. The last driver to win four in a row? Jimmie Johnson in 2007. Primary tire, option tire, it didn't matter at Phoenix for Bell. His average running position in the race was 2.6. He led a race-high 105 laps and scored 17 stage points, winning a stage. Said Larson of Bell: "It's extremely tough to win two in a row in the Next Gen era and for them to win three in a row is really impressive."

William Byron — Although he finished sixth, he remains the points leader by 13 over Christopher Bell, who has won three of the season's first four races. How has Byron done it? Stage points. He had a race-high 18 stage points at Phoenix. It's the second time in the last three races he's had at least 15 stage points.

Denny Hamlin — His runner-up finish marked his first top-five result since Martinsville last fall.

Kyle Larson — He finished third for the second time this season. He has finished in the top four in four of the last five Phoenix races.

Josh Berry — He came back from a loose lug nut that dropped him to 32nd on Lap 94 to finish fourth and give the Wood Brothers their first top-five finish at Phoenix. The team's previous best finish at Phoenix was seventh in October 1995 by Morgan Shepherd.

Kyle Busch — His eighth-place finish gives him three consecutive top 10s. Busch told NBC Sports after the race: "I would say that the step that we made from last year to this year was a really good step. Another major step like that, we can be a contender for racing for the win."

Zane Smith — His ninth-place finish is his first top 10 of the season.

Ryan Preece — He was the first to switch to the option tires in the first stage and went on to score eight stage points. That came a week after he won a stage at COTA via strategy. In the last two races he has 44 points and 18 of them (40.1%) have come via stage points.

LOSERS

William Byron — He was on pit road when the caution came out and forced him to take a waive around, putting him at the back of the field late in the race, ending his hopes of winning. Said Byron: "It was just an unfortunate situation there. It was an aggressive call, and I thought that it was going to set us up for a shot. It was just crazy there at the end. We restarted 21st and got up into the top-10 pretty quickly. I feel like we probably used up a lot of tire on the (option tires) to get the last few spots, so it was hard to get much more."

Brad Keselowski — He was collected in a seven-car crash and could not continue, finishing 33rd. He has finished outside the top 25 in three of the first four races and is 33rd in the points.

Ty Gibbs — He finished 25th after an accident. He has finished 25th or worse in eight of the last nine races, dating back to last season. He is 34th in the points.

Ty Dillon — He finished 16th but earns a spot here for speeding on pit road on Lap 265 when he had a set of option tires left over the field. Dillon was in position before the pit road speeding penalty to have a much better result.