AVONDALE, Arizona — Christopher Bell edged teammate Denny Hamlin by 0.049 seconds in a late drag race to become the first NASCAR Cup Series driver to win three consecutive races, securing the second-closest finish in Arizona.
“It worked out about as opposite as I could have drawn it up in my head,” Bell said according to AP. “But the races that are contested like that, looking back, are the ones that mean the most to you.”
Bell previously won a championship with Kyle Busch and could see that Bell had the goods to have a successful career after moving to Joe Gibbs Racing.
“I will never forget 2021, my first year with Bell’s crew chief Adam Stevens, and me and Adam got off to a rocky start,” Bell said according to AP.
“We were sitting in his office there and he looked at me and said: ‘We can do this. I´ve won three straight sitting in these exact same two chairs,’ talking about him and Busch. And he said, ‘I know that we can do it.'”
Bell turned into one of the Cup Series’ best drivers, earning his first win at the Daytona International Speedway Road course in 2021. He has had at least two victories in each of the past four seasons and reached the Cup Series’ Championship 4 in 2022 and 2023.
Bell and Stevens went through a bit of a dry spell after winning at New Hampshire last June, but they have been nearly unstoppable at the start of the 2025 season.
Bell started 11th in the 312-mile race after winning at Atlanta and Circuit of America the previous two weeks. The American race car driver moved toward the front early and remained there most of the afternoon, taking the lead out of the pits on a late caution.
Bell stayed out front on two late restarts, holding off his teammate by the nose of his car on the final one to become the first driver to win three straight races since Kyle Larson in 2021. He’s the fourth driver in Cup Series history to win three times in the first four races — first since Kevin Harvick in 2018.
“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,” Bell’s crew chief Stevens said.
The Phoenix race was the first since Richmond last year to give teams two sets of option tires. The option red tires have much better grip, but start to fall off after about 35 laps, creating an added strategic element.
Hamlin pulled alongside Bell’s No. 20 Toyota over the final two laps after the restart and seemed to be slightly ahead at the white flag. The teammates bumped a couple times while jockeying for position, but Bell barely managed to keep ahead of Hamlin, crossing the checkered flag with a wobble for his 12th career Cup Series win. He led 105 laps.
“I kind of had position on the 20, but I knew he was going to ship it in there,” Hamlin said. “We just kind of ran out of race track there.”
Kyle Larson finished third, Josh Berry fourth and Chris Buescher rounded out the top five.
