Christopher Bell a Championship 4 underdog, but don't tell him that
No disrespect to Christopher Bell, but if people had ranked the Joe Gibbs Racing drivers and their chances to win the 2023 Cup title when the playoffs started nine weeks ago, he likely would have ranked third out of the three who made NASCAR's version of the postseason.
Martin Truex Jr. had won the regular-season title. Denny Hamlin had finished second. The veterans had combined for five victories.
Bell had managed one win during the season, and that was on the Bristol dirt track. He somewhat quietly finished fourth in the standings. While his talent can match those of the more veteran drivers in the JGR stable, Bell maybe just doesn't do it as flashy.
That could change Sunday.
For the second consecutive year, Bell is the sole JGR driver with a shot to capture the title on the final day of the season. He will vie with William Byron, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson, with the driver who finishes the best among them at Phoenix Raceway winning the crown.
"I feel like we're finally doing well and performing how we expect to perform. ... I know that we are capable of being a championship-caliber team," Bell said. "And it feels good to finally, I guess, put the world on notice a little bit. And we're here to stay."
Bell bristled at the question of whether his team is championship-caliber considering he didn't rack up the wins in the regular season that his teammates — and many of his other competitors — collected and celebrated.
"I don't think my stats have sucked this year," Bell said. "The results have been disappointing because of the expectations that myself and probably you guys and everyone else had.
"So, no, we didn't live up to our expectations. But if you look at my stats compared to everyone else I'm racing, then I feel like it's close."
Christopher Bell on his season and making a second straight Championship 4 appearance
Bell is right. Among the four drivers, he ranks second in average finish this year at 12.886. Midway through the regular season, he was fourth in the standings and just 21 points behind series leader Truex.
"We had so many potential races that we should have been racing for the win or were racing for the win and lo and behold, we weren't at the end of the day," crew chief Adam Stevens said. "But you can't let that drag you down.
"My message to him all the time and to my guys is you've got to pull the good stuff out of the weekend and leave the bad stuff behind and work on your weaknesses and move on. And I think largely we've been able to do that."
That was certainly evident in the last two months. Bell has recorded four top-four finishes in the last eight races with also a seventh and an eighth. His victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway two weeks ago gave him a week of breathing easy heading into the championship race.
Last year, Bell needed to win a pair of elimination races just to be a championship finalist. This year, the 28-year-old Bell appears to be peaking at the right time.
"Taking a young guy like Christopher, for us to be in there two years in a row, it's just a huge deal, a huge accomplishment," team owner Joe Gibbs said.
"The thing about Christopher is if you kind of notice what he's been able to do, when he kind of gets to a point where he kind of looks at the latter part of the season, knowing how crucial the races are, it's kind of where he steps up. He did it last year. He did the same thing again this year."
Now Bell hopes that Phoenix is different. He wasn't much of a factor at Phoenix a year ago until late in the race when he was in a position to possibly challenge for the lead. He eventually finished 10th. In the spring race at Phoenix, he was sixth.
Sixth might sound good but Byron won in the spring, Blaney was second and Larson led the most laps and finished fourth.
"Both Phoenix races last year were actually pretty disappointing from an overall speed perspective and at the end of the [title] race, I was still in contention for the championship — so that is refreshing," Bell said. "Phoenix this year was greatly improved over what we had both races last year. I feel optimistic about going there and being competitive."
Stevens, who won titles in 2015 and 2019 with Kyle Busch and then started working with Bell in the 2021 season, says Bell is a different driver now than a year ago. Some of that is just another year of experience in his fourth full-time season and the other is getting a better handle on NASCAR's Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022.
"It's just growth," Stevens said. "He has a better understanding of what he's looking for in the car at all these different tracks we go to — all the drivers do because it's all so new.
"And our communication and the communication with the team and the engineers is probably a little bit sharper. It's just those things that kind of come with time."
And as the sole hope for JGR, Bell should have the full support of the entire organization — if the organization can get over the disappointment that Truex and Hamlin didn't make the cut.
"Everybody here, the teams that aren't in, the meeting [this past] Monday is not the happy time for them — it's a downer," Gibbs said. "But overall everybody realizes what an opportunity it is, and we've got a chance. That's all you can ask for in pro sports. I think everybody is excited from that standpoint."
Bell said that Monday meeting was "unique" the last two weeks as he won Homestead while Truex and Hamlin had mechanical issues and then were eliminated after the most recent race at Homestead.
"It was strange — the 20 group [of mine] is all smiles and cheers and hoorahs and the other teams are not obviously," Bell said. "The last two Mondays have been mixed emotion in the room. I just need to win and bring a championship back. … It’s not hard for me to be happy. But Joe, I’m sure, is disappointed."
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.
