AUSTIN, Texas — Christopher Bell was prophetic.
After winning at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Feb. 23, Bell said 2.4-mile, 17-turn Circuit of Americas was a track he had circled for another potential victory.
Sure enough, after passing Kyle Busch for the lead and staving off defending race winner William Byron over the last five laps at COTA, Bell was a back-to-back winner in the Cup Series for the first time in his career, having claimed victory in Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix.
Bell beat Byron to the finish line by 0.433 seconds, as the reigning Daytona 500 winner raced Bell cleanly over the closing laps. Pole winner Tyler Reddick was third, followed by Chase Elliott, who made a miraculous recovery from a Lap 1 spin in Turn 1 resulting in a broken toe link.
Busch fell to fifth on the final lap after side-to-side contact with Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota during the battle for the lead which took all the juice out of Busch’s No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
The victory was Bell’s first at the Texas road course and the 11th of his career.
“Whenever Kyle was leading, I was just trying to be so cautious,” said Bell, who spun Busch’s car in Turn 1 in the 2024 race. “Obviously, we know what happened last year. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to pass him clean. He was just doing such a good job at running his race, and he could get off the corners just good enough that I couldn’t get inside of him.
“But there I started peeking a nose, and he bobbled and allowed me to get out front. Whenever I did, I’m, like, ‘Okay, just don’t beat yourself.’ Those were about the five or six sloppiest laps I’ve ever run.
“Just super proud for everyone on this DeWalt No. 20 team. We didn’t count (on) last week. Last week was a speedway. We didn’t have that one circled. We definitely had this one circled. I’m ready to keep adding to it.”
Having pitted two laps earlier than Bell during the final cycle of green-flag stops, Busch, who led a race-high 42 laps, held a 2.6-second margin over Byron and a 4.0-second advantage over Bell on Lap 78 when Denny Hamlin locked his brakes into Turn 6a and knocked Austin Dillon’s Chevrolet into a gravel trap to cause the third and final caution.
Busch took command on the restart on Lap 83, but Bell had superior tires and an arguably superior car. With a run off Turn 20 on Lap 90, Bell had the lead before the cars reached the start/finish line. At the top of the Hill in Turn 1 on Lap 91, Byron followed into second place, and Reddick soon had third.
“Yeah, it was really close,” Byron said of his attempt to challenge Bell in the late going. “I felt like the battle between (Bell) and Kyle was just kind of sitting there waiting for one of them to bobble or slide their tires. Bell got by him. I felt like once he got clear, his car was super loose, and it kind of gave me a couple of shots at him, and I just couldn’t ever get beside him.
“We’ve always raced really well together, so I didn’t want to like move him blatantly and all that kind of stuff. Just sliding around a ton at the end… So just sucks to be so damn close, right? You can be on the bumper of the guy coming to the line, and that sucks. A lot of races ahead, and hopefully we can just keep bringing the speed.”
Busch rued both the inopportune caution and the effect of the tire disparity after the final restart.
“I wish we could have had a little bit more there at the end,” Busch said. “I feel like maybe the two-lap fresher tires the 20 had was the difference… But I also hated to see that yellow that came out.
“I felt like we had a little bit of a gap there that I was protecting my tires, and I could run the lines I wanted to run. I didn’t have to run defensive lines and use up my stuff even more so, (which I did) when the 20 was right on me.
“I’ll give Christopher credit, though, where credit’s due. He ran me really hard, and I was a complete butthead. But he did a great job working me over and just doing it the right way and being able to get by.”
Elliott fell to the back of the field when contact from Ross Chastain’s Chevrolet sent him spinning in the first corner of the first lap. When the majority of the field came to pit road before the end of the first stage, Elliott stayed on track to collect fifth-place stage points.
Pitting during the stage break to repair the toe link broken in the accident, Elliott restarted 36th and worked his way forward. Crew chief Alan Gustafson’s call for fresh tires during the final caution allowed Elliott to charge to fourth place.
“Yeah, it was just a crazy day, really,” Elliott said. “I got run over, I felt like, there in the first corner. I’m curious to see it. I still haven’t seen it to know whether or not I did something wrong. I’m happy to own it, if I did. I just felt like it was the first corner of the first lap, and it’s just a bummer to get behind, and then we had damage.
“Alan and the guys did a great job fixing it and getting it that close. We got behind on a restart there and just had to play major catchup there. Alan made a great call there at the end to put tires on it. We were rolling up through there really good at the end.
“Obviously, when you have a good car like that, I would have liked to have been in the fight with those guys, but it was a great recovery from where we were at during the end of the second stage.”
Shane van Gisbergen, Chris Buescher, Noah Gragson, Alex Bowman and Todd Gilliland completed the top 10.
The Cup debut of 18-year-old road course phenom Connor Zilisch came to an early end in a violent collision with Trackhouse Racing teammate Daniel Suárez on Lap 50.
Charging through Turn 19, Suárez’s Chevrolet bounced off the curbing and spun wildly as cars behind him scattered to avoid calamity. As Zilisch steered to the right, Suarez’s car spun into his path, and Zilisch plowed into his teammate and careened into the outside SAFER barrier.’
Both cars were too badly damaged to continue. The wreck ended a valiant rally by Zilisch, who was collateral damage when Chastain dive-bombed into Turn 1 and turned Elliott on the first lap.
Zilisch pitted with a flat tire and fell back to 33rd, but by the end of the second stage he had worked his way back to 14th, his original starting position. On the restart lap after the second stage break, however, Zilisch’s race ended against the fence.
“All I saw was a cloud of smoke, and by the time I saw him (Suárez), it was way too late to do anything,” said Zilisch, who won Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at COTA. “I saw him spinning off to the left and I thought he was going to keep going in that direction or stay there.
“I guess he flipped back right and he started coming towards me. Really unfortunate way to end my Cup Series debut. We were one of the top-five fastest cars in the second stage there. I went from outside the top 30 to 14th, and I felt really good about our Chevy. We made a lot of gains from practice and qualifying. It’s just an unfortunate way to end it.”
