TOYOTA RACING – Christopher Bell
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
LAS VEGAS (March 14, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media on Saturday after winning the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
This is the second straight Las Vegas race that Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing have swept the top-three positions in qualifying. It is the seventh time in Toyota’s Cup Series history that Toyotas have swept the top-four positions in qualifying.
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Can you tell us about your lap?
“Sure. I mean, it’s pretty simple, really. Takes a lot of commitment here in Las Vegas Motor Speedway to qualify well, and my team got their P’s and Q’s right. We had a lot of grip, and I held my foot down, and we won the pole.”
After that lap, are you sure you want to bring the short track package here?
“It’s time. The evolution of the Next Gen car, from 2022 to where we are today, it doesn’t feel like we’re on the same rules package. It’s time.”
Were you affected by the bumps in qualifying?
“I would assume it’s set up, just from the data that I was seeing. It looked like pretty much everybody ran the same line, and certainly the line that the next gen cars run is a lot different than the (O’Reilly) cars, and that’s due to the bumps in how our cars take the bumps, but pretty much everybody in the field knows now that turns one and two, you got to take the smooth line through there, and from what I saw, I think most people were doing that. So, yeah, it’s a compromise. Every time you come to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, it’s a compromise of getting your car to have as much grip as you can have in (turns) 3 and 4 without the bumps hindering you in turns one and two. So anytime that you make the car drive better across the bumps, you’re giving up performance on the smooth part of the racetrack, and my team nailed it. They did as good as any of them today.”
Do you think the weather will affect tomorrow’s race?
“I think it’ll be a pretty standard Las Vegas race. The temperature is going to be elevated compared to what we normally have on the spring race, but the fall is normally, I think, similar from what I understand. So, yeah, I would assume it’s going to be very similar to the Vegas races that we had in the fall, and yeah, I like it. The slicker it is, the more enjoyable it is to race these cars, hotter and more uncomfortable inside the car, but the racing product seems to benefit whenever it’s hot and slick outside. So, I like it and I’m looking forward to it.”
What do you make of SVG’s progression on ovals?
“I think everybody said it, he clearly has the skill set to be and he is a top level talent, and I think if you give him enough experience, he’s going to figure out whatever type of racing he wants to figure out. Fortunately for his competitors, and unfortunately for him, the format handicaps him tremendously. If you would have done this years ago where we had hours of practice and multiple sets of tires for practice, I think he would have been a lot further along, but t he format that we race under today with one set of tires for a 20-minute practice session, I think has taken him a little bit longer to develop the oval stuff, but he’s clearly getting the hang of it, and it’s not very long before he’s a factor on an oval.”
Were you surprised with your lap time?
“I didn’t know what last time I was going to run, but just from practice, I think in practice, what I read, like at 29.30, so a half a second pickup is, I think is pretty much in line with what we normally pick up from practice to race trim, so from that standpoint, I don’t think it was a surprising lap time, but to beat the field by over a tenth is something that’s not very, you don’t see that very often. So just goes to show that my engineers, my crew chief, my mechanics, they executed really well. The Toyotas clearly have plenty of speed in them, and whenever I kept seeing Toyota after Toyota go and jump to the top of the pylon, I knew that we were going to be in position, so you have a good lap, and then thankfully, I didn’t make any mistakes on my lap, and my team did their job, and we got rewarded for it.”
Do you think it is time to change practice format?
“I’m probably indifferent on it. The biggest thing for me is having tech before practice. So we have this practice session, we only have one set of tires, which most racetracks, that means you get one run in practice. Here in Vegas is a little bit unique because there’s not as much tire deg, so some people got two, but it’s not a lot of practice, and then with tech being before practice, you don’t have the opportunity to change your car or try a different setup or anything like that. I’m okay with having the amount of practice that we have, but it would be nice to be able to make changes to your car before the race day. I don’t know, it seems like everybody in the industry is pretty content with the way it is going through tech and then practicing and then going into qualifying and the race. But it doesn’t give you an opportunity to work on your cars, and then from the standpoint of Shane (van Gisbergen), not having any time or tire allotments is hindering him, but for me, selfishly, I would like to be able to work on your cars after practice.
Do you see something in Denny’s car in practice?
“Yeah, well, they beat me in practice. I won the one lap race, but he was consistently faster than me over the course of the entire practice session. So, it’s a good thing we’re not racing today.”
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