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 prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How does this track effect you because you have been so good but haven’t been able to secure a victory?
“I mean, honestly, it just makes me excited to come back here. It’s a really competitive track for my group and my team. So yeah, I guess if we keep doing that, hopefully one of these days we’re going to get to Victory Lane, but it’s a great racetrack for me, so I enjoy coming out here and competing at Las Vegas.”
Have you experienced the sim yet for Darlington?
“I have not. My schedule hasn’t allowed me to get sim time in Darlington yet, but, I will agree with them that as slick as Phoenix was, I think Darlington is going to be very, very, very different than what we’ve had in the years past with the Next Gen car. So, I’m excited about it. I think it has potential to look like a much different Darlington race than what we’ve had in the in the last couple of years. I just had a ton of fun at Phoenix. I thought Phoenix was night and day different than what we’ve had the last, well, since we’ve started going there, it’s been really hard to pass and this race was the first race. I felt like you could actually make your way through the field if you had a better car. I proved that; Ryan Blaney proved that it seemed like. If you had a better car, you were able to pass, and I think a lot of that a lot of that was due to the horsepower and the added horsepower made the track feel slick. The tires degraded. We were sliding around, and the best cars made the way to the front. I think Darlington is going to be more of the same.”
Are you going to be doing anything with the High Limit Series tonight?
“I will, yeah. I’m going to be in the Flo booth so, we’ll see how that goes, but it’ll be fine. I’m excited to be a fan, watch the race, and talk about what I’m seeing.”
Are you more optimistic after Phoenix with the horsepower change?
“Yeah, absolutely, cand I don’t know. I’m surprised by it because I would have thought Phoenix was one of the racetracks that it really wasn’t going be able to tell the difference. I can promise you that if we’re feeling it at Phoenix, just wait till we get to Martinsville and Richmond, and on top of that, Darlington. But Darlington – it’s going to be a much greater change at Darlington because of the downforce package and the rules package that were the car package that we’re taking there, so we’re getting more horsepower and less car potential. So, I think it’s going to be a massive difference in Darlington, and then with what we’ve already found out at Phoenix, I love where we’re headed. I always think that we can use more, and I would love to get more horsepower, and hopefully this is an indication that we’re turning the right knob, and I think sky’s the limit. If we continue to add horsepower, I think we’re going to get right to where we need to be.”
How much are you looking at points this year versus last year?
“Yeah, it’s just a completely different mindset and way of attacking the weekend where before it was it was literally win or bust. You’re here for race wins and stage wins, and you’re looking at those playoff points, and if you don’t win a race, you it’s like, okay, well, it’s behind us, it’s on to the next one. The regular season standings were a thing, with the previous format, but it really only mattered whenever you got towards the end of the regular season and still on top of that, the only reason that you’re talking about the regular season was because of the bonus points that it played that it paid out. So now it means everything. It’s the true standings; the true standings in the previous format was the playoff points, and now it is the points that everybody sees. We don’t have 2 goofy point standings. The points are the points and it really matters and it’s important. So, yeah, I’m thankful that I’m not buried in the 30s anymore. I was talking to Jeff (Gluck) before COTA, and I’m like, well, the regular season championship is probably out the window, and here we are, it looks a lot different now. It just goes to show that if you run well, you can make up points and put yourself in position.”
Do you think consistency is going to be important or was that overrated from the start of the year?
“Ah, no, I mean, a lot of the big movers in the point standings is just because nobody has accumulated a large mass of points yet. So, the field is still relatively tight, and especially the first two races are speedway races. It’s just, it’s literally lottery racing. I think as you get going into the season, we get to, you know, 10, 15 races into the season, you’re going to start seeing it a little bit harder to make up the differences and positions and the point standings, and consistency will weigh out, but, I will say the addition for the race win points is going to be huge. So, if you find yourself in a hole and you’re able to win races, you will be able to make up the difference. So, I think they they’ve hit a really good you know balance point there of being able to be consistent, but yet if you can go out and hit home runs and win races, you’re going to be able to really advance your position as well.”
Can you talk about being back in a truck next weekend and if it can help for the Cup race?
“I don’t know that it’ll help me at all for the Cup race, but certainly it’s going to be fun, and yeah, just enjoyable to go out there and compete with a group of people that I’ve been around before – driving for Jimmy (Villeneuve), the crew chief, he was, I’m pretty sure he was the truck chief on my championship truck back in 2017 or whatever that was. So, I had a ton of fun racing with them in Watkins Glen filling in for Stew (Stewart Friesen) last year. So, yeah, they’ve proven that they have great equipment, and I think they’re doing the right steps to assert themselves at the top of the standings there in the Truck Series. So hopefully we can keep this 62 truck up in points and I think they’re just really coming out of their shell. They invested a lot into trying to be one of the best teams in the series and it’s showing right now.”
Would you entertain running more race for them?
“Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I love racing, so we’ll see what happens after Darlington. I don’t know what’s next, but we’ll see how Darlington goes and see where it ends up in there.”
What are you looking for this weekend with it being the first mile-in-a-half race this year?
“It’ll let us know where we’re at and really things haven’t changed very much from, where we ended last year aside from the new Chevrolet body, and we haven’t been to a true high speed downforce style track yet. So, I would think that the Chevrolets – this will be a really good test for them to see where they stack up with their new car, but aside from the rest of us, it’s going to be more the same and going back to the horsepower stuff. I would love if we could start running that short track package and all of the intermediates. I think it’s getting to be about time for a change and we’d love to love to see that. We’ll see how it races in Darlington. We get a couple sample sizes in Darlington, Bristol will now have that package. Dover will have that package. So, a couple of high speed tracks, but yeah, if we brought that thing here in Vegas or any of the intermediates, I think it could be, it would be a game changer so, yeah, I expect this weekend to be more of the same minus the Chevrolet body.”
What is your favorite racing film that would give Best Picture?
“It has to be Days of Thunder, right? Yeah, let’s go with that one.”
What would a sequel to Days of Thunder do for the sport?
“Yeah, it would be really cool. I think anytime you get more exposure for our sport and just getting more eyes on it would be huge. One thing I appreciate about Days of Thunder was it was taken a little bit more serious. As a kid growing up, I loved Talladega Nights, and I thought it was hilarious, but then the older I got, and the more into the sport I got, I realized that the general public kind of took that as reality and not the comedy than it was. I think if you could get more serious footage of it and showing how amazing our sport is, is a great, great thing.”
Would you be okay if NASCAR switched the horsepower package for the second race at Las Vegas later this year?
“Yeah, I would be. I’m not sure what my team would think. Maybe they’re going to be mad at me after talking about this, but I would love it. I think we’ve run it now at a lot of different racetracks, and especially with us going to Bristol and Darlington next week, which are tracks that we’ve run the intermediate package on and now we’re running the short track package on. I think it’ll be fine so, I would be all for it.”
What was it like going to the Thunder game?
“It was cool. I love getting to go to Thunder games. Anytime I’m back in Oklahoma, I really enjoy cheering on my hometown team. It’s really cool to see all the success they’ve had and where they’re at right now. They are in a really good spot. But, yeah, I had no idea I was on the Prime broadcast. I wasn’t on the big screen or anything at the event. So that’s awesome that they showcased me and, I think that’s good for our Prime races to get a little bit more intermingling there, but yeah, I’m thankful that they are advertising our sport on a huge, huge platform, but I had no idea that I was on the broadcast or anything.”
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