To win the NASCAR Cup Series at Pocono, Christopher Bell's team carried out an audacious plan to outsmart the fellow Joe Gibbs Racing team of Denny Hamlin. However, the strategy backfired in the closing stages of the race.

At the Great American Getaway 400 on Sunday, Bell and his crew chief Adan Stevens decided to not make the final pit stop when the others did, and got the race lead. However, their gamble came to an end with one and a quarter laps to go in the race to end, as Bell ran out of fuel.

Adam Stevens, however, wasn't disappointed with the failure.

"Well, we just s***** all day, and we were going to run 18th to 25th," he said (via NASCAR.com). "And that opportunity presented itself, and honestly, we were hoping for a caution early in that run. And we didn’t get it, and then we decided just to save and see how close we could get."

Bell started his race from 22nd place, and mostly remained around the top 20 most of the race. He was in 17th at the end of Stage 1, and 26th at the end of Stage 2. And then it made sense to go for the audacious plan to outsmart his opponents.

Further explaining what went wrong for Christopher Bell, Stevens added:

"When you’re saving that hard, we don’t really have a great way to really know for sure how we’re doing, so it was worth a shot. Just a lap and a quarter short."

Bell tried to outsmart his rivals, and especially Denny Hamlin, who started the race from the pole. As a result, Bell could keep his lead and led the pack for 18 laps. However, his luck ran out midway through the 159th lap.

As Bell ran out of fuel, he started to fall behind and ultimately finished the race in 26th place. His teammate, Denny Hamlin, on the other hand, won the race.

Christopher Bell Hails Crew Chief For Pocono Gamble

Christopher Bell lauded his crew chief, Adam Stevens, for attempting the bold tactic to secure a victory. With nothing to lose because they were running around the top 20 most of the NASCAR Cup race, Bell felt the gamble was the need of the hour.

"This was not a would have, could have, should have," Bell told Frontstretch after the race. "I’ve had a lot of would have, could have, should have this year, but not this one. That was just a gamble, and we ran around 20th all day. I applaud him (Stevens) on rolling the dice and trying to do it."

After 16 races, Christopher Bell is in 10th place in the Drivers' Standings with 421 points. He is one of the two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers not to win a race, while Ty Gibbs has one, and Denny Hamlin has picked up four.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Yash Kotak