After spending much of Sunday's race mired in midpack, Christopher Bell summoned the speed to power to the front of the field late at Homestead-Miami Speedway, taking the lead with 15 laps to go in a duel with William Byron and then holding off Ryan Blaney in the closing laps to win the 4EVER 400. With his second win of the season and the sixth of his career, Bell has now advanced to the Championship 4 of the NASCAR playoffs for the second year in a row.
Bell spent the majority of the early and midway portions of the race struggling with his racecar, and at one point almost went a lap down. But as other playoff contenders fell by the wayside late in the race, Bell's car came to life. And after getting in position late, Bell came out on top in a battle with playoff rivals Byron and Blaney to join Kyle Larson among those who will race for the Cup Series championship in Phoenix.
4EVER 400 unofficial results
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #12 - Ryan Blaney
- #45 - Tyler Reddick
- #24 - William Byron
- #16 - A.J. Allmendinger
- #23 - Bubba Wallace
- #54 - Ty Gibbs (R)
- #22 - Joey Logano
- #10 - Aric Almirola
- #3 - Austin Dillon
"I've got the best team behind me. Honestly, I don't know, man. That race was a whirlwind," Bell told NBC Sports. "I was ready to throw the towel in there in the second stage and I got really frustrated on the radio. (Crew chief Adam Stevens) kept after it. Adam, Tyler, William, the guys back at the shop were working over the adjustments and they gave me what I needed. Whenever we got some clean air, this thing was really good.
"I cannot say how proud I am to be here with our partners ... Thank you everyone that's supported me. This is better than a dream come true."
Last weekend at Las Vegas, Bell came up a car-length short of beating Kyle Larson for the win, and he lamented his missed opportunity while others questioned whether he should have roughed up Larson more than he did coming to the checkered flag. But however many felt that Bell wasn't aggressive enough, many more -- namely seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson -- praised the way Bell chose to race and encouraged him to stay the course.
Now, Bell will challenge Larson and two others for the Cup championship at Phoenix Raceway. Bell was 10th in last year's Championship Race, earning him a third-place finish in the Cup Series standings.
Playoff drivers pounding sand
By the time Christopher Bell began to make his way into the top 10, Sunday's race was shaping up to mark yet another week where drivers in the Round of 8 experienced little issue. Seven of the eight remaining playoff drivers were at the front of the field -- Chris Buescher, who was never a factor and finished 21st, being the lone exception -- and things were shaping up to be a battle between a dominant Kyle Larson and an emerging challenger in Ryan Blaney.
As a round of green flag pit stops began, Larson tried to find the extra tenths of time he needed to get the edge on Blaney. As the two came to pit road with 55 laps to go, Larson would end up finding way too much.
Overcooking the entry to pit road, Larson was unsuccessful in trying to woe his car down and ended up slamming into the sand barrels at the start of the pit road wall, putting him out of the race after he led a race-high 96 laps.
"I was just maximizing all I could. I didn't expect him to slow down so early," Larson told NBC Sports. "I was just trying to get to the yellow line as quickly as possible, and felt like I was in control. From my vantage point he slowed down a lot, but from there it just looks like I bombed it in there. So I just need to look at some data and see where I was relative to pit road speed and all that."
Larson's crash would come at a very inopportune time for several of the leaders, as those who pitted prior to Larson and Blaney at the start of the cycle -- including Martin Truex Jr. -- were trapped a lap down and had to take the wave-around to get back on the lead lap.
A four-car crash on the restart would end up being a break for Truex, as he was able to get back to pit road and put on fresh tires. But shortly afterward, both his luck and the luck of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin would run out.
An intense battle for the lead between Hamlin and Blaney would turn into an intense battle for third, and one Hamlin wound up prevailing in. But driving into Turn 1 with 32 laps to go, something broke in the steering of Hamlin's car, shooting him hard into the outside wall and knocking him out of the race.
Then, under the ensuing caution, smoke began to billow from the tailpipes of Truex's car, and the sudden engine failure would knock Truex out of the race as well in a disastrous sequence for two of the Joe Gibbs Racing cars and two of the top drivers in the regular season.
That late-race development has now knocked both Hamlin and Truex to 17 points below the cut line entering the Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville, putting them in a fairly moderate hole as two spots remain available in the Championship 4. William Byron (+30) now enjoys a great points cushion, while Ryan Blaney holds the final spot above the cut line by 10 points on Tyler Reddick.
Joining Reddick, Hamlin and Truex below the cut line is Chris Buescher, who at 43 points back will likely have to win at Martinsville to advance to the Championship 4.
Race results rundown
- After finishing third here a year ago, AJ Allmendinger yet again demonstrated the feel that he has for Homestead-Miami. Allmendinger earned a fifth-place finish, giving him his fourth top-five finish of the season -- the most he's ever had in a single year in his Cup career.
- Prior to the drop of the green flag, it had been 31 months and 966 days since the last time Bubba Wallace raced at Homestead following a schedule change and Wallace's suspension for this race last year. After starting second, Wallace led nine laps early and reemerged at the front late in the going, finishing sixth in the Grimace Mobile. Just don't drink the Birthday Shake.
- While Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney came one spot short of a Championship 4 spot, Joey Logano successfully rebounded from a crash in practice on Saturday to earn an eighth-place finish in a backup car. Blaney and Logano's uptick in performance also seems to have rubbed off on Austin Cindric -- A 12th-place run marked Cindric's best finish on a non-superspeedway oval since another 12th at Michigan in August.
- Aric Almirola continued what's been a quietly consistent late portion of the season, earning a ninth-place finish for his first top 10 since Daytona in August. Almirola now has four top 10s on the season, which would be his fewest in a season since 2012 should it hold.
- A solid weekend and a solid finish for Austin Dillon, who passed Kevin Harvick for 10th on the final lap to earn his first top-10 finish since Richmond in July. Dillon has now earned at least seven top-10 finishes each season since 2020, which would mark his fewest in that timespan should Dillon fail to earn another top 10 at either Martinsville or Phoenix.
- Ryan Preece continues to build positive momentum toward the 2024 season, as a 13th-place finish marked his fourth top-15 finish in the last six races. Next up is Martinsville, where Preece won the pole and led a career-high 135 laps back in April.
- As a means of preparing for the 2024 season, John Hunter Nemechek took the wheel of the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club machine that he'll drive full-time next season. Nemechek raced on Sunday despite suffering from a cold, but he didn't finish the race after being taken out in a crash on late-race restart.
Next race
The Round of 8 comes to a conclusion and the Championship 4 will be settled with the penultimate race of the season, the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Coverage begins next Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
