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.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our nearly 1,500 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs nearly 48,000 people in the U.S. who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of more than 35 million cars and trucks at our 11 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.

NASCAR CUP SERIES
LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
MARCH 14, 2026

Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Media Availability Quotes:

It’s a big weekend for the Busch family. Brexton’s out at Madera Speedway to make his Jr. Late Model debut in the 51FIFTY Jr. Late Model’s. Just talk about how excited you are for him…

“Yeah, I think it’s pretty exciting for him, I would guess, as a 10-year-old to get your chance to race for your first time in a big late model, a big car. We were up there the last couple days doing some testing and trying to get her dialed in and make it as good as we could get it. We’ve changed everything under the sun, and we hear the same comments from the drivers, so we’re missing it a little bit there. Hopefully, he can just have some fun; learn a lot and get some experience under his belt with some of that stuff. I would imagine he’s probably one of the youngest guys in there, if not the youngest guy in there, so plenty of time to get better with age and just make some laps.”

One of the neat things about Madera is that it offers young drivers like Brexton the opportunity. Drivers like Jesse Love, Cole Custer have raced there. Other than the fact that Madera is allowing Brexton to race at a young age, is there any reason why you guys chose that specific track?

“No, it’s the only one that lets him do it. I haven’t heard of any others that allow the 10-11 yea olds to race the late models. You’ve got to be 12 on the east coast with everything that I’ve looked up and looked at. It’s just an opportunity. It’s obviously way far away from home, going coast to coast to be able to go race those races. But that’s the opportunity that’s out there, so we’re going to take advantage of it.”

What is the sensation going through turn one and two, especially getting through the bumps and trying to navigate through what seems to be a tricky car?

“Yeah, this track is a bit challenging, obviously, with the bumps. The bumps in (turn) one seem to have always been there. There’s been a few more that have developed over the years. The tunnel’s started to sprout a bump over there. It’s just character, and that’s what you’ve got to work on around this racetrack in order to be fast. These cars obviously being different than the O’Reilly cars or the Trucks, with the ground effects underneath the bottom and running as close to the ground as you can, you have times where you bottom out; you get out of shape and you’ve got to hold onto it. Trying to minimize all of those issues to make sure that you’ve got a good, smooth ride is paramount here, and keeping your momentum going through the center of the corner is all about lap time.”

With this being the first intermediate race of the season, what are you looking to learn that can help set baselines for future mile-and-a-halves this season?

“Yeah, just to kind of get a basis, I guess, of where you stack up against the field. Your setup here at Vegas is not the same as Kansas, Texas, Charlotte or any of those. You’re pretty different at each one of these racetracks that you go to, so trying to pinpoint what allows us to be quicker and what allows us to be further up the pylon to compete, and so that’s what we’ve got to work on here this weekend to get ourselves in tune with the rest of the year.”

This particular race for the past couple of years hasn’t been well. You guys have been working on the car and turning the program around. Where do you see the organization as far as getting to this intermediate track and then going forward for you guys?

“I don’t know. We’ll find out here in a little bit, right? It’s the first intermediate for the year. Last year here, this race was really good for us. I thought we had really good speed. I think we qualified into the top-10.. We were running fourth. We had a bad pit stop, and then we had a loose wheel, lost a tire, all that sort of stuff. So it just kind of derailed after the first time we hit pit road. Can’t have all that happen. Hopefully, we can have some of the same speed that we had here and go from there.”

I know we got used to seeing you run Trucks when you used to come here often. It seems like you have a lot of fun doing so. Trucks obviously put on great races at Las Vegas. Do you feel a certain way knowing that the Trucks isn’t as involved as they used to be here at this facility?

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened with all that, but obviously not having the Trucks here this weekend is a little bit of a downer. I certainly would have chosen that race to be a part of. I always kind of looked forward to coming to Vegas with the Trucks, and they’re just not on the schedule this year. Weird, but I think they go to Charlotte twice now or something like that.

Whatever happens, happens. It is what it is. All good. We’ll get our eight races when we can get them.”

What would you rank this facility for Truck racing amongst other tracks?

“That’s an unfair question to the hometown boy. Certainly on the higher end of the spectrum, for sure.”

You talked about how this track is just kind of getting a basis for this package, but how do you measure that with the new body style of the Chevrolet and comparing it to setups that you’ve run previously?

“Yeah, these cars are so aero-sensitive, it’s crazy. Some of the aero numbers that we have from last year to this year, obviously those are different, so that’s kind of steering us in a little bit different direction as far as setup goes for the race car, how you want your platform to be and how you want your ride model to look and stuff. It’s not always as easy as just ‘copy and paste’ from the previous year. We’ll see how all the key partners do and how they all hit it. The No. 1 car had some really good speed here last fall, but again, all new things coming here this week.”

Weather always seems to be a factor here in the spring race especially. This year is no different with the heat instead of the wind. How do you anticipate that affecting the race conditions this weekend?

“Not too much. I think the heat actually will sort of lend itself to being a little bit closer to last fall when we were here and then again when we come back later this year for the race then. It’ll just be less delta. Obviously the wind is always sort of the bigger issue here in which direction it’s getting blown to how your setups differ between the two ends of the racetrack, but no wind is always easier for the competition.”

Your new crew chief, Jim Pohlman, won the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race here last year in the spring. Just curious if you guys have had any conversations about what could work on the Cup side for tomorrow.?

“Absolutely nothing… nothing. The O’Reilly cars are nothing like the Cup cars. I would have answered that question a lot differently if we were in the previous generation Cup car, but we’re not, so there’s not an ounce of information that correlates.”

News dropped recently about NASCAR maybe ramping things up as far as production for a ‘Days of Thunder’ sequel. What are your thoughts on the potential of that?

“I don’t know how much NASCAR’s involvement is, if they’re the ones calling for it or not, but obviously I think it would be something cool. It would be special. You’ve got to be careful with it, right? Because the first one was so good, you don’t want to screw up the second one. It’s always hard to come back with a better second chance at making a movie.

But no, it’s awesome. I’ve had a chance to speak with the writer a couple times about some of the ideas and what not, so that’s been pretty fun and interesting to see what the concept may be or may not be. But yeah, we’re certainly looking forward to it and seeing it come to fruition.”

Next week, Kurt (Busch) is the Grand Marshal at Darlington Raceway. Did you ever think you’d see your brother as the Grand Marshal of a NASCAR Cup Series race?

“Yeah, I mean when you see some of these guys that retire and move on into different roles, you kind of see them come back and do things, and so obviously that’s no different. Good for him. I think that’s pretty cool. Obviously it was one of the closest finishes in NASCAR history being there at that racetrack with him and Ricky Craven and him not coming out on the top end of it. But pretty exciting nonetheless, especially when you go back and watch the last five-seven laps of what that race was and then understanding that Kurt (Busch) had power steering issues and things like that. So it was great for a long, long time being the number one closest finish, right? It wasn’t until recently that that got surpassed. But it’s good for him. Obviously the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction this offseason was very special as well too, so yeah, he’s living it right.”

About General Motors

General Motors (NYSE:GM) is driving the future of transportation, leveraging advanced technology to build safer, smarter, and lower emission cars, trucks, and SUVs. GM’s Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands offer a broad portfolio of innovative gasoline-powered vehicles and the industry’s widest range of EVs, as we move to an all-electric future.

GM Motorsports, including the Cadillac Formula 1® Team develops and proves advanced technologies in the most demanding environments, accelerating innovation in performance, safety, efficiency, and electrification for its production vehicles. Cadillac Racing is one of the leading manufacturers in the IMSA and FIA World Endurance Championships (WEC). Chevrolet competes in single seaters in the US IndyCar series, and in NASCAR with multiple team partners and drivers. Corvette customer teams compete in GT series across the globe including IMSA and WEC. Learn more at GM.com.

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.”

About Toyota

Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our nearly 1,500 dealerships.

Toyota directly employs nearly 48,000 people in the U.S. who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of more than 35 million cars and trucks at our 11 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.

For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.