BRISTOL, Tenn. — A season that hasn’t met all expectations frustrates Christopher Bell and contributed to his outburst on the team’s radio after last weekend’s playoff race at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Bell enters Saturday night’s playoff elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway 32 points above the cutline. He starts ninth.
After Bell’s seventh-place finish last weekend, crew chief Adam Stevens said on the team’s radio: “That’s what we needed today. Take the pressure off next week. Good job guys.”
Bell responded by shouting: “We just (expletive) ran seventh with the best car on the track! Every (expletive) week it’s the same (expletive)! We’re the last car to pit road! I’m over it!”
Bell has three wins this season — and he also won the All-Star Race in May — but has gone winless in the last 24 points races. Teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe have combined to win seven races in that time, including the first two races of the playoffs.
“I don’t think it’s about winning races,” Bell said Friday about his frustration. “Certainly that is an important part of it. If I was consistently leading laps and in position to win, then I would never have been frustrated.
“But the fact of the matter is I haven’t been in position to win races, I haven’t led laps. My teammates are leading it seems like almost every lap and they’re getting the results out of it. It’s less about winning races and more about being in position to do well and we haven’t had that.”
AJ Allmendinger earns his fifth career Cup pole and first since August 2015 at Watkins Glen.
Bell ranks fifth in the series in overall speed this season. Hamlin is his only Joe Gibbs Racing teammate who ranks above him at fourth. Bell ranks above Hamlin, Briscoe and Ty Gibbs in passing this season.
Even so, Bell hasn’t collected the victories like he did early in the season when he won three in a row.
Only twice since his he won at Phoenix in March has Bell led more than 25 laps race in a points race. Sixteen times — including last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway — he has not led a lap in a points race.
Even with that frustration, Bell admits he remains hopeful of better results in the playoffs.
“I think that goes back to the teammates having the success that they have,” Bell said. “It just shows that the capability is there, the equipment’s there and it makes me optimistic.
“I was frustrated last week, but, aside from that, I know that every time we go to the racetrack we have a great opportunity to lead laps and, hopefully, contend for wins.”
