Christopher Bell gutted out a photo-finish brawl with teammate Denny Hamlin, snagging his third straight NASCAR Cup Series win Sunday at Phoenix Raceway—the second-closest finish in the track’s history.
Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota went high, scrapping side-by-side with Hamlin’s No. 11 through the final two corners of a two-lap shootout on the one-mile oval. The 30-year-old Oklahoman edged it by 0.049 seconds—his second spring Phoenix win in a row and a Next Gen era record.
“How about that one, race fans? Oh my gosh!” Bell shouted to the roaring crowd, waving the checkered flag at the stripe.
He unpacked the chaos: “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, gutted but gritty, nabbed his best finish of 2025, locking JGR’s first 1-2 of the year. He led the white-flag lap, only to see Bell’s speed—105 laps led—steal it. “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 5 [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 grinned through the tension: “It can be a tense Monday meeting if it doesn’t work out,” he laughed, watching his duo dice it out. Later, on the last restart: “I was ready to upchuck.”
Kyle Larson took third for Hendrick, with Josh Berry (Wood Brothers) and Chris Buescher (RFK) rounding out the top five—Berry’s season high on a day of tire strategy roulette.
Goodyear’s red option tires—two sets per team versus six primary yellows—shook up the game, offering grip but quick wear. “Everything went according to plan at Phoenix, and the option tire worked very well,” Goodyear’s Mark Keto said. “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.”
Ryan Preece gambled early on reds, jumping 25 spots to lead 34 laps before fading to 15th. “It worked out about as opposite as I could have drawn it up in my head,” Bell said. “But the races that are contested like that, looking back, are the ones that mean the most to you.” Hamlin agreed: “I kind of had position on the 20, but I knew he was going to ship it in there. We just kind of ran out of race track there.”
Crew chief Adam Stevens saw the bigger picture: “We’ve had four races this year, put ourselves in position in all four and managed to win three, which is a pretty remarkable batting average — something that will be hard to maintain, I believe.”
William Byron (sixth) liked the chaos: “It was just crazy there at the end. 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.”
A Lap 2 pile-up—Spire’s Justin Haley and Carson Hocevar, plus JGR’s Chase Briscoe—took out five cars. Haley still praised the reds: “I wish I would have been on the option tires the whole time and everyone else on the primaries. 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.”
Katherine Legge debuted in the No. 78 Live Fast Chevy, finishing 30th—the first woman in Cup since Danica Patrick’s 2018 Daytona 500. “We made some changes to the car overnight and they were awful,” she said. “I was just hanging on to it.”
Bell’s 12th career win sets him up to chase Bill Elliott’s 1992 mark—four wins in five starts—next week at Las Vegas, where Larson defends.
