Sports AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kyle Larson knows the sensation of a success three consecutive NASCAR Cup Sequence races.
Up unless Sunday, he used to be the final to achieve that feat, a success back-to-back-to-back Cup events for the length of his 2021 Cup championship season.
Indubitably one of Larson’s finest competitors, Christopher Bell, earned his third elope trophy in 15 days, as he followed victories at Atlanta and Circuit of the Americas with a triumph Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.
It marked the first time a driver has gained three consecutive Cup races with the Next Gen vehicle provided in 2022 and the first time a driver has gained three of the first four races since Kevin Harvick did it in 2018.
“It’s extremely tough to win two in a row, I feel like, in the Next Gen era, and for them to win three in a row is really impressive,” Larson stated. “Their team is just strong. Their race cars are really fast. Bell is a phenomenal racecar driver, obviously.”
Bell’s triumph Sunday came after he led 105 of the 312 laps in what likely would had been moderately of a runaway, if now no longer for some slack cautions. Bell had a aspect-by-aspect fight with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin within the final two-lap elope to the enact, edging Hamlin by 0.049 seconds at the enact line.
“I thought I had lost the race coming to the white flag on the bottom with Denny on my outside. And then I once again felt like I had lost the race coming to the checkered flag down the back straightaway whenever Denny was on the outside,” Bell stated.
“I don’t know how I won. I do know how I won. The [No.] 5 car [of Larson] gave me a great shove coming off the turn forward to push me to the line, and that was the difference maker.”
Hamlin has earned 54 Cup victories in his career. This marked Bell’s 12th, with his three consecutive wins coming at three very diversified tracks. Those came at a drafting discover at Atlanta, a street course at COTA and a flat one-mile discover at Phoenix. At Phoenix, there used to be the added twist of teams getting to resolve between two diversified tire alternatives for the length of the elope.
“Obviously, you see a gain in performance there, but you don’t know [why]. It could be a lot of different things,” stated Hamlin, a JGR teammate of Bell’s about his three-elope a success lag. “Is it our cars greater? Is it conditions in a speedway elope or street-course elope or esteem this one? I advise he presumably dominated.
FINAL LAPS: Christopher Bell takes checkered flag at Shriners Kid’s 500 to salvage third straight Cup Sequence elope “I don’t know. Circumstance or not, three in a row is pretty impressive and whatever they’re doing is just working.”
His crew proprietor, Joe Gibbs, couldn’t show cover how Bell might possibly presumably well well moreover salvage three races after ending 2024 with a 19-elope winless lag.
“I’ve got to tell you the truth,” stated the famed soccer coach. “I don’t know that I have an answer for that.”
What he knows is what he sees in Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens, who gained two Cup titles with Kyle Busch.
“We all kind of watch him, the talent he has,” Gibbs stated about Bell. “I deem it presentations up. [These three wins] says a lot about the talent.
“Adam and Christopher are a real pair. Adam, obviously you can tell he has a gift being a crew chief.”
Bell has a straightforward clarification of why he went winless over the 2nd half of of 2024 to now a success three in a row in 2025.
“We should have won a lot, but we didn’t win any,” Bell stated. “It was just bad fortune, some lack of execution. … The performance had been there. It was just getting everything to line up, and now we’re clicking.”
The ask now is when will the lag cease? The sequence heads to Las Vegas and House the subsequent two weeks. Those are two valid tracks for Bell.
“The more wins you get, the more confidence you get as well as your team gets,” Larson stated. “He’s getting to head to Vegas, one other discover the set he is tiresome mercurial after which House per chance after that?
“I don’t know where we go after Homestead, but I’m sure he’s fast there as well. It’s good to get on a streak this early in the year. … It just sets your season up in a good spot.”
No driver has gained four consecutive races since Jimmie Johnson in 2007.
“Everybody’s grinning ear to ear and just trying to ride the wave,” Bell stated. “I’ve raced prolonged ample for the length of my lifestyles that I are conscious of it comes in waves. And there are times the set it upright feels similar to you might possibly presumably’t enact one thing else upright, and there are times the set you might possibly presumably moreover be feeling similar to you might possibly presumably’t enact one thing else unpleasant.
“I’m just going to keep living and riding it out as long as we can.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent a long time covering motorsports, in conjunction with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Wearing News, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seaside) News-Journal. Apply him on Twitter @ bobpockrass .
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