CHRISTOPHER BELL BRINGS HOME RUNNER-UP FINISH TO LEAD TOYOTA AT PHOENIX
Gibbs and Hamlin Round out Three Camry’s Among the Top Five Finishers
PHOENIX (March 8, 2026) – Christopher Bell led the Toyota contingent with a runner-up finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway. Bell dominated the race, leading a race-high 176 laps and winning both stages, but late-race strategy shuffled the field with fewer than 30 laps remaining, leaving the Joe Gibbs Racing driver just short of the victory.
Ty Gibbs (fourth) and Denny Hamlin (fifth) helped Toyota place three drivers among the top five finishers Sunday afternoon. Bubba Wallace (sixth), Tyler Reddick (eighth) and Erik Jones (10th) helped propel drivers from all three Toyota teams — Joe Gibbs Racing, 23XI Racing and LEGACY MOTOR CLUB — inside the top 10.
Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Phoenix Raceway
Race 4 of 36 – 312 miles, 312 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Ryan Blaney*
2nd, CHRISTOPHER BELL
3rd, Kyle Larson*
4th, TY GIBBS
5th, DENNY HAMLIN
6th, BUBBA WALLACE
8th, TYLER REDDICK
10th, ERIK JONES
18th, RILEY HERBST
25th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
37th, CHASE BRISCOE
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
You led a total of 176 laps, was it a matter of that last caution?
“Yeah, I mean, ultimately. If we had more green flag laps, I think we could have made a run at him.
I don’t know. You win some, you lose some. This one stings, but on the positive side I’m really proud of our entire team. The pit crew did amazing. Adam brought an amazing car. Our mechanics, engineers did really good. It’s something to build on. I don’t know. It was a day that we needed. We got a lot of stage points, finished second. Yeah, just bummed whenever they get away like that.
TY GIBBS, No. 20 AM PM Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
Are you satisfied with a solid top-five finish?
“We were really good today. I don’t know. That’s unfortunate. But we’ll keep rolling. I think I could have done some things better there. Yeah, unfortunate there. But very happy with my team. All the guys, I’m with the right guys. That makes a difference. So we’re running good because of that. It shows. Really happy with my team, everybody has done a great job, everybody believes in me, we all believe in each other. Happy with that.
Thank you to AM PM. Car looks great. It’s so rubbered up you can’t even see the number. Very happy with today and how everything went. Congrats to the 12 (Ryan Blaney), they were really fast. I’ll keep working, see where I can do better.
I thought the show was pretty cool. I had a lot of fun. It kind of sucks I didn’t win, but we had a lot of fun racing out there. It probably looked cool. We’ll keep rolling. Thank you to the man above, all my guys that believe in me, I really appreciate that.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 20 Bob’s Discount Furniture Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
How were you able to bring home your first top-five finish of the season?
“Just a fringe top three to four car all day. That’s kind of all we had. The 20 and 12 were standouts there.
Yeah, great job by our Bob’s Furniture Camry. Need to be a little better. There’s not much else you can say. We’ll download, figure out how we can be a little better. Seemed like a couple of our teammates there were really good that we can learn from. Good top five and we’ll move on.”
TYLER REDDICK, No. 245 Jordan Brand Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
You weren’t far off another victory, can you take us through the race from your perspective?
“We just kind of fought handling a little bit. Seemed like our Jordan Brand Toyota Camry had good speed. Kind of back and forth on which direction we needed to go with our Camry. We kind of just hovered around fifth all day. We took those two tires there. I got a little tight on us at the end. All in all, it would have been nice to make it four. Looking at the board over here, scored the fourth most amount of points on the day. That’s kind of what we need to keep doing all year to keep the lead that we have and try and hang on to it. Solid day. If we’re not going to win, these are the kind of days we need to have. Glad to get out of here with some points.”
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 37th
Do you know what caused the incident?
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen the replay one time, it almost looked like something in my left front. When I had my vibration, I told them that I thought it was in the front end. Just par for the course for how this year started. It was another car that was extremely fast, felt like we were certainly going to be in contention for the win and just another failure for us. Definitely frustrating, we’ll go on to next week and see if we can turn it around with our Bass Pro Shops Toyota team.”
All the JGR Toyota’s seemed to be strong and marching towards the front, how was the racing in these hot and slick conditions?
“It was a blast, I was having a lot of fun. We were driving them extra power, it’s only 70 horsepower more, but it feels like way more than that. We were sliding all over the place and it made it a lot of fun. I think Darlington is going to be out of control when we go there with this package. It was a lot of fun, wish I was out there until the end and the JGR cars were certainly good.”
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