TOYOTA RACING – Christopher Bell
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
BRISTOL, TENN. (April 11, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Bristol Motor Speedway.
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
What did you do to celebrate your Truck Series win from last night?
“I have some frosted flakes in the motorhome when I got back. That’s what I did to celebrate.”
Does it raise red flags if you are not competitive for the win but in the seventh to 10th place range on Sunday?
“You can’t just blanket statement and say if you finish seventh to 10th that is a red flag. Certainly, this is one we expect to be competing up front. If we have a good solid race and get a top five in stage points and restarts don’t work out or strategy doesn’t work out and we run seventh to 10th it will be an acceptable finish. But if we go out there and just miss the stage points and run in the back half of the top 10, we expect to be better than that, especially here at Bristol. If that happens, I think it will be disappointing. You just never know how these races unfold, it starts today with qualifying, it’s super important to get a good qualifying lap and put yourself in position for that Stage 1 to get some point there. This is one we have circled to go out here and fight for a win at.”
Have you seen any modeling as to where you should expect to be in points as the regular season moves along and where realistically do you think you have to be?
“I honestly don’t know. I assume my crew chief Adam (Stevens) has a better understanding of it, he’s really analytical and digs into the numbers all the time. I haven’t talked to him about that, but I know our goal for they year has been a constant sliding scale of how to start the season where we said alright, regular season championship and we are coming back after it this year and then we start the year with two DNF’s in a row and it’s like, ok well maybe we are fighting for a top-10. Then we started doing well and now we are fighting for a top five. I think I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks to just kind of don’t pay attention to it. Just go out and fight as much as you can and the regular season standings are going to end up where they are going to end up. One thing that’s been eye-opening is just the amount the point spread the field has gotten, especially with winners like Tyler (Reddick) being able to separate himself from the field. Denny (Hamlin) winning at Las Vegas and having good runs and Ty (Gibbs) is having good run and they have been able to make up positions. If you can get on a roll and win some races, you’re going to climb the standings in a hurry and that’s what we are focused on.”
What have you seen from Ty Gibbs over the course of the first part of this season or anything different about him?
“I have, he’s been in a good mood. He’s happy. Ty is killing it man. It’s fun to see his confidence is literally radiating from him. He’s doing a really good job, he’s really switched on right now. He’s doing a good job driving, but on top of that his input has become so much more valuable through our team debriefs and stuff like that. He’s taken a huge step and he’s a joy to be around right now.”
How much stock do you put into how well your teammates are doing?
“A lot. We work so close together with all of our teammates that we can really use their notes and their information. Whenever you see a guy struggling or performing well you either go down this route or don’t go down this route. Throughout the course of the year this year all of us have been really good at different times, and it’s pretty cool to be able to use that information. You know, they were running this here and running that there, stuff like that. It’s something we put a big focus on, what the teammates are doing and how that are running and how they are performing.”
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