NASCAR: Bell holds off Hamlin to give Toyota a Phoenix sweep

On Friday it was the Toyota of Brent Crews in the ARCA race, on Saturday it was the Toyota of Aric Almirola in the Xfinity race, and on Sunday it was the Toyota of Christopher Bell winning the NASCAR Cup race.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

It was Bell’s third Cup win in a row for Joe Gibbs Racing, and it was a clean sweep of the Phoenix Raceway weekend by Toyotas.

Leading 105 total laps, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing became the first driver in the Next Gen era to win three straight races.

Bell started from the 11th position and was towards the front of the field throughout the 312 laps on Sunday, including a Stage 2 victory. After a late yellow forced an overtime finish, Bell had to hold off hard-charging competitors behind him.

Denny Hamlin came across the line 0.049s behind Bell to give Joe Gibbs Racing a 1-2 finish.

Kyle Larson was a close third in his #5 Hendrick Chevy, 0.097s behind Bell.

Josh Berry brought his #21 Wood Brothers Ford home in 4th, 0.308s behind while Chris Buescher rounded out the top-5, 0.569s behind.

Berry and the No. 21 eero Mustang Dark Horse capped off a strong weekend at Phoenix Raceway with a fourth-place finish in Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500. It was the first top-five finish of the season for Berry and the eero team and the fourth top-five of Berry’s Cup Series career. The No. 21 team also was the top-finisher among the Ford contingent.

.@CBellRacing holds off a hard-charging @dennyhamlin to win at @phoenixraceway! pic.twitter.com/x70NvrgC5Z

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 9, 2025

Quotes Top-3

Third race win in a row, Christopher. You had a dominant car for the majority of the day. It did not come without some drama at the end of the race, racing your teammate Denny Hamlin. How did you get that done?

CHRISTOPHER BELL: How about that one, race fans? Oh, my gosh, man. Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red tires on, 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, really hard there coming to the line. JGR ran 1-2, how about that?

How were you able to hold everyone off on the restart and get the victory?

CHRISTOPHER BELL: “I have no idea! I knew it was going to be all about who could get clear. I did everything I could to drive deep in the corner and get clear, and I never got clear. He (Denny Hamlin) got back on the outside of me. It was just some hard racing and I really felt like I was in the worst spot coming to the line on the bottom and I just got lucky that (Kyle) Larson tried to dive three wide and gave me that shove there. It was like we’re at Talladega again (laughs).”

How good was your car today?

CHRISTOPHER BELL: “Yeah my Reeser’s No. 20 Camry XSE was incredible, especially on the yellow tires (primary tires). It seemed like the red tires (options), the field was a little bit closer. I would imagine that’s going to be the tire we race on when we come back (to Phoenix Raceway) in the fall, so have to dig in and see what we were missing to be a little bit better on the red tires. Super proud of everyone on this No. 20 group. Obviously, the boys are killing it. This was our first race with Reeser’s on the car and we got them in victory lane. What a day for JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing)!”

You entered the Toyota program around 12 or so years ago. How have you gotten to where you are today from that starting point?

CHRISTOPHER BELL:  “I’m glad you asked that as Tyler Gibbs (president, TRD USA – Toyota Racing Development) is right over there (in the media center). Don’t look away, Tyler (laughs). Tyler Gibbs is the reason. Between he, Jack Irving (general manager, TRD USA – Toyota Racing Development), David Wilson (former president, TRD USA – Toyota Racing Development), they were the three guys that took a chance on me in 2014. It’s unbelievable to look back at it and whenever in 2014, when it seemed so far away to be here today in this moment. Looking back it, it felt like it happened overnight and going through those years – the dirt cars and getting that first contract that I got from Toyota Racing Development saying I was going to run 15 Late Model races and make you a stock car driver and I’m like ‘how is this going to happen?’

“They’ve always under-promised and over-delivered, and that was something that was a life lesson for me. Don’t over-extend yourself. Don’t promise more than you can take. But those 15 Late Model races turned into those and seven Truck races. The following year was full-time Trucks. Whenever I got into full-time Trucks, I think I was 20, 21-years-old and at that time, Erik Jones was in the Cup Series and he was younger than me, I’m pretty sure. And Chase Elliott was younger than me. I was like, ‘man, I need to get to the Cup Series tomorrow! Otherwise, I’m not going to make it.’ And they said, stay the course. They believed in me. They allowed me to develop as a race car driver. And yeah, it felt like so far away in those early years and now living it, it feels like it was just yesterday. Thank you, Tyler. It means the world to me.”

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Closest finish in the history of Phoenix. Describe the frustration. Best run of the year.

DENNY HAMLIN: Yeah, great job out of this Sport Clips team. 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. They made up for it at the end.

First time we were able to get some clean air all day. Obviously our car was really fast. Really kind of wanted it to stay green there ’cause I thought in the long runs is really where we were going to be able to excel, especially on these tires.

But we got a good restart. The 5 really gave me a great push on the frontstretch on the restart, down the backstretch.

I had kind of position on the 20. I knew he was going to ship it in there. He had to use me. He could. Obviously we just kind of ran out of racetrack there.

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

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Kyle, found your way up the inside at the end of the race. Were you thinking those guys might slip up and let you get up there?

KYLE LARSON: I felt like that was my only hope. Yeah, I felt like I made the correct decisions there. I don’t know, I’d have to look back at it.

I thought being patient to try and keep them side by side down the back was good. I could have shot to the bottom, but I felt like I would have wrecked everybody there. Yeah, just kind of gave ourselves a shot for them to maybe get into each other and us squeak by.

Good to finish third. I felt like we were going to be lucky to finish top 10. Pit crew did a great job there that last stop. They made good adjustments compared to our first option tire round two.

Yeah, got better, but need to be a lot, lot better to have any shot to win here in the fall when it really matters. Great to get a solid finish in here. It’s been kind of a struggle for us here to start the year. Happy about that.

Go to Vegas and try to do good again.

Shriners Children’s 500 Results