JOE GIBBS RACING DRIVER Christopher Bell joined an elite list of NASCAR legends including Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson and Richard Petty when he took his third consecutive win of the 2025 season – the first driver to take three of the four opening races since Harvick in 2018.
Bell, driving the no. 20 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota, fought hard against JGR team-mate Denny Hamlin at the end of a chaotic race consisting of 10 cautions and mixed strategies involving different tyre compounds.
The NASCAR Cup Series returned to Phoenix today for 312 laps around a more “traditional” oval racetrack. Phoenix Raceway features a unique ‘dog leg’ which drivers can cut to save 50 metres of distance between the start/finish line and turns 1 & 2.
This race also featured the return of the softer ‘option tyre’ with the red sidewall lettering. The softer compound of rubber allows for over half a second faster lap times, at the cost of longevity. Despite this, no drivers started the race using the option tyre because each team only had two allocated sets for the race.
William Byron started on pole position on the inside of reigning Cup champion Joey Logano who won at this track just four months ago.
Katherine Legge made her Cup Series debut this weekend – the first female Cup driver since 2018 – and the 17th ever to start a Cup race. Legge is a hugely accomplished Briton best known for becoming the first female winner in a major North American open-wheel racing series in 2005. Legge started today’s race in last place and spun herself just four laps into her debut fighting against her tight race car.
When the caution ended, Bryon and Logano led the field around just two corners before another caution was called. The no. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun around after a domino-effect collision between Noah Gragson, Cole Custer and Todd Gilliland in a four-abreast battle off the corner.
At the following restart on lap 15, Logano was penalised for having part of his car below the yellow line of the apron before the start-finish line. The drive-through penalty forced Logano to last place while Byron inherited the lead.
Under the last caution, RFK’s Ryan Preece pitted for the soft option tyre and throughout stage 1 he gained an astonishing 30 places before the stage end. William Byron won stage 1 followed by Tyler Reddick and Preece.
Austin Cindric was the highest-placed car to restart with the option tyre in 15th. In the following 26 laps, he gained the race lead over Byron. More drivers from lower in the field appeared in the top 10 with the option tyres, but their progress was halted by a caution as hometown hero Michael McDowell’s rear-right tyre blew entering turn three, putting him in the wall.
Bell beat Byron off pit road under caution as the drivers using the option tyre switched back to the primary tyres. Cindric and Suarez made up row two. The field restarted at lap 99 where a huge pileup occurred out of turns one and two involving several cars.
Ty Gibbs in the no. 54 car slid up the track, pushing Haley into Chase Briscoe and Carson Hocevar, ricocheting them off the wall and collecting more in the process – including Riley Herbst, Todd Gilliland, Brad Keselowski, Shane Van Gisbergen, Cole Custer, AJ Allmendinger and Austin Dillon.
Bell and Bryon resumed green flag racing from the front row on lap 113. Only Joey Logano ran the option tyre as he pushed to regain lost ground after his penalty. By lap 130 he shuffled into the lead – now the question was: how long would those tyres last?
On lap 178 – only 8 laps to go in stage two – Bell passed Logano for the lead as the no. 22’s soft tyres finally faded. Bell won the stage over Logano and Byron.
On lap 215 – just as the FOX booth were talking about Katherine Legge, she washed up the track at turn two into Josh Berry, spun, and collected Daniel Suarez in the process triggering another caution.
Pit stops under caution saw Bell come out ahead of Reddick, Byron, Logano and Berry. Every team swapped their option tyres for the primaries given the race had just shy of 100 laps to go – except for Preece in 14th, who put on another set of the reds.
With 90 to go, the field restarted. Within 14 laps, Preece on the option tyres took the lead from Bell and maintained a three-second gap.
With 48 laps to go, Bubba Wallace’s front-right brake rotor exploded and sent him into the outside wall at turn two. With some drivers having stopped moments before the caution and some under the yellow flag, the order was shaken up. Bell, Hamlin, Logano, Larson and Chastain headed the field to green with 36 laps to go.
Earlier in the race, Ryan Blaney had complained on the radio about a lack of power – “I think I’m blowing up”. With 24 laps to go, his motor suddenly gave up, smoking away as the caution came out yet again.
Bell and Hamlin launched into green flag running with 17 laps remaining.
The 10th caution of the day came shortly after when Ty Gibbs found the outside wall of turn three with another brake rotor failure – and only 8 laps to go.
Bell and Hamlin restarted with just 2 laps to go. With Bell unable to clear Hamlin over the final laps, he dived for the win at the final corner – pushing Hamlin wide and taking a shot from Kyle Larson behind to propel the no. 20 across the line in 1st – in the second closest Phoenix finish in NASCAR Cup Series history.
Hamlin, Larson, Berry and Buescher rounded out the top five. Overall this Phoenix race provided much better racing than previous years thanks to the varied strategy of the option tyres and the general attrition of this race with penalties, wrecks, exploding motors and brake rotors.
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