TOYOTA RACING – Christopher Bell
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (October 31, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Martinsville Speedway.
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How do you balance everything you have gone through this year?
“I think has a whole, our season has been really good. Four months ago, I don’t think any of us thought we were going to be in the position we were in. Obviously last weekend was disappointing, I think in one way it makes to where our mentality going into these next two races is a lot different. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Just going to go out there with max aggression and have two good weeks.”
Was the wrist injury the first time you’ve been hurt in racing and what did you learn about yourself in trying to battle through that?
“It was the first time I’d every broke a bone in my life and certainly the first time I’ve been injured driving a racecar aside from mild concussions here and there. I don’t really know that I learned anything about myself, but it was fun to learn to persevere and push through it. I’m proud of how I handled it.”
How do you handle the disappointment of last week?
“Our team has team has really good chemistry right now and were having a good time working together. We have great comradery between our mechanics, our engineers, Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and myself. Last week was a trying moment for our team. I was really happy with how we all came together. It would have been really easy to tear each other down in that moment and none of us did. I was really proud of our group for last week and how we handled it.”
How did you go home and process all that happened last week after Talladega?
“It’s certainly a mentality shift. Where we are at now, we know that the only way forward is to go out here and win two stages and a race and go to Homestead and win two stages and a race. In reality, we have nothing to lose, so now the pressure is off. It’s just a matter of going out there and throwing hail mary’s. We’re to that point now, so that’s what we are going to do.”
How easy is it to make that mistake coming to pit road when you have no experience with that package?
“There’s a lot of things that go into it. Nobody in the field had any data on where your car needed to be and where your brake marks needed to be or anything like that. It was a guessing game for all of us, we’ve had many conversations leading into Daytona when we first tried the low downforce package. Where we tried to get to pit road was going to entail. Then there wasn’t any green flag pit stops at Daytona, so we had no data on what was going to happen or what we needed. When I went to pit road last week I just had nowhere near enough front brake bias in it and the minute I touched the brake the rear tires locked up and it was game over. I think it was just a matter of not having any data on it and we guessed wrong.”
How have you dealt with the pressure for the last eight weeks?
“I hope that our results will speak to how we handled the pressure. We did good all the way until last week, so I guess that maybe we didn’t handle the pressure well, so I don’t know. We had a great run of consistent cars and consistent performance. Maybe we could have won more races there, Gateway, where I crashed out and then the power steering issue at Las Vegas hindered a lot of points there. Aside from that, the performance was really strong all the way through. My team does really good in these pressure moments. Just looking back on the history of our postseason performances, I think we’ve been one of the top guys.”
What are your thoughts on racing at Homestead?
“I think Homestead is a great place to go and cap our season. It’s a super fun and challenging track, and something that really rewards drivers, it’s a drivers track. It’s similar to Darlington in that Darlington is slippery, you have to change your line around and you have to change your driving style as the tires wear. It’s a drivers track and certainly a track where the good drivers and good teams succeed at.”
Would it be beneficial for NASCAR to do a pit road practice at Talladega with the change in package?
“I promise you if we would have had some sort of practice every team would have come to pit road to see how their car would handle getting on to pit road and the decel. It would have been beneficial to all of us. With that being said, it was the same for everybody and however many cars there were in the race with 36 of us in the race and I was the only one who crashed out on pit road and a few guys got speeding penalties. All of us had the same opportunity, but practice would have helped a lot. But I will say it’s the same for everybody.”
Does adversity pull you and your team together even more than before?
“Just the way we all handled it was remarkable. All of us knew that Talladega was going to be a turning point for better or for worse. When it all happened, I ended up driving the car back to the hauler. Instead of leaving, I said I would just stay here and see Adam and my guys and see how they react and we all were accountable. We all pulled the rope in the same direction and nobody was finger pointing and saying this was on you. We all screwed up, I could have lifted earlier. We all held each other accountable and moved forward.”
The bumpers give more than they used to. How much will you pay attention to that tomorrow?
“That’s a great question. I owe you a thank you for the reminder. I’m going to have my spotter remind me of that all day tomorrow. That is a super critical thing that has the potential to be a really big change for Martinsville. The way the restarts happen and the stack ups, it’s going to have a really big impact on the race. Making sure that you’re mindful of that is going to be mission critical. I think it’s going to be a talking point for sure.”
How different do you think the atmosphere of this race will be since it’s not a last-ditch effort like it’s been in the past?
“This is new for everybody. I think it’s yet to be known exactly how the race is going to unfold tomorrow. But certainly the format is different and the lows can be a lot more penalizing knowing the points are going to carry over into Homestead as well. I think it’s yet to be told as to how it’s going to play. But the bumper structure is going to be a really big deal, you aren’t just going to plow through guys like you did in the past. It will be a interesting race.”
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