FOUR TOYOTA TOP-10s AT RICHMOND
Bell and Hamlin Capture Top-Five Finishes at Richmond at Playoffs Draw Near
RICHMOND, Va. (August 14, 2022) – Christopher Bell (second) was the highest finishing Toyota in Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway. Bell was followed to the checkered flag by Denny Hamlin (fourth), Martin Truex Jr. (seventh) and Kyle Busch (ninth) also in the top-10.
Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Richmond Raceway
Race 24 of 36 – 300 miles, 400 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Kevin Harvick*
2nd, CHRISTOPHER BELL
3rd, Chris Buescher*
4th, DENNY HAMLIN
5th, Chase Elliott*
7th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
9th, KYLE BUSCH
13th, BUBBA WALLACE36th, TY GIBBS
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
What else did you need to catch Kevin Harvick in the final laps?
“I got held up pretty bad at the beginning of the run by a couple slower cars and that was ultimately the difference when you get beat by a couple car lengths. Just really fun and really fun race when you have different strategies and you have guys coming and going. I love whenever the races stay green and you’re able to play your cards a little bit different. Really proud of everyone on this 20 crew to be able to come back from how we started. Very tough weekend for us. We didn’t practice very well and we didn’t qualify very well. And the guys did a really good job getting this Rheem Camry up front and where we needed to be at the end.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
How did you feel about the strategy your team put forth today?
“We had the winning strategy. I think we played it great. The fall-off was nearly as great those last couple runs, really for the last 100 when the track was shaded over. So I thought that going long was actually the right play and the team did a great job with that call for sure and just had a slow stop on that last one. We ended up three-and-a-half second behind.”
Did the timing of your last stop make sense with the strategy?
“It was the perfect time. I knew that when we pitted there, the gap that we had to the cars that were on fresh tires, I knew that we were going to come out on the same straightaway with them on much fresher tires. It was the race call and the winning call, just didn’t execute on stuff and just a little hiccup.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 9th
How was your race car today?
“We were looking okay, and in a good spot just coming up through there working our way methodically through the field with our M&M’s Toyota Camry, and we got ‘Chastained’ this week. We were his victim this week. And then that didn’t hurt us too bad. We restarted back in a decent spot. But then the next spin I think, was Christopher (Bell). That allowed the guys that were around us that we were kind of racing some of our team guys to come get tires and then they had 10 fresher laps on tires the whole rest of the day. So that kind of hurt us if we would have been on that strategy we would have run out of tires, but we also probably would have been in the top five. So just wrong side of the strategy there. At the end, nothing, nothing to do really to flip that but good fight all day long. You know, the top 10 is about what we had anyway, I figured the best we were it was about a seventh you know, but barring a strategy call, we could have probably been top-five. So that’s all we had anyway.
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