Christopher Bell did not end up winning the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma. However, his heroics from the race are noteworthy, as not only did he qualify in 14th, but he also battled hard enough to bring his car to a P5 finish, all of it with a broken hand. 

Speaking to Frontstretch some time after the race, the JGR driver said that the team strategy was something that really stood out. Bell earned 50 points in the race, which was the third-highest stage points gain in the race.

“I mean, we just did really good, we got stage points, I thought Adam (Stevens) played a very conservative race, I told him going into it that I really needed to be the person on offense, I didn't want to be the guy on defense trying to block and pull guys off, so he kept me on offense, kept me on tires, and it worked out,” he told the media, as tweeted by Frontstretch. 

Adam Stevens, the crew chief for Christopher Bell, went into detail about the strategy. He explained that going after stage points was a plan, as they knew beating Shane Van Gisbergen was going to be tough on road courses, where he is more dominant. 

“We were in a spot after the last few weeks, where we really felt like we needed to maximize our points, and it was going to be hard to beat SVG, too, after qualifying where we did, so we went after the stage points and had a good enough car and a capable enough driver to get back up through the field and get a good finish still,” Stevens said.

Bell had fractured his left wrist during the Firekeepers Casino 400 at the Michigan Speedway in one of the most violent impacts seen lately against the outer wall. However, despite his injury, he somehow avoided major surgery.

Although the races at Pocono Speedway and the Coronado Naval Base didn’t yield good results for Bell, he clearly made his mark at the road course in Sonoma. 

Denny Hamlin crashes in the race, but gains the championship lead

The 45-year-old JGR driver seemed to hit a purple patch this season. While his first win came at Las Vegas, he followed it up by winning the All-Star race, and then with a hat-trick of wins at Nashville, Michigan, and Pocono. 

He was also looking to score a substantial amount of points in Sonoma, but things changed in the final stages of the race. A short clip on X posted by Steven Taranto shows Hamlin being pushed by Carson Hocevar, resulting in a spin that broke his car’s front splitter. Brad Keselowski's car is being discussed as the reason for the contact.

He fell to the back of the pack and then struggled to regain lost ground. He then had to settle for a 26th-place-finish, as a late pit session took him out of contention for a spot in the Top 10. However, his finish earned him 11 points, which helped him climb up a spot and dethrone Tyler Reddick as the new championship leader. 

The 23XI driver suffered a DNF due to a power steering issue, and is now separated by just one point in the driver standings. 

Read more at RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason