AVONDALE, Ariz. — Even with Christopher Bell parked squarely in Victory Lane, the dust settling after a dominant showing in the desert, the results from Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix Raceway don’t tell the full story of Toyota’s impressive day.
The Camry XSE shined in the debut of the latest short-track package with Toyota drivers leading 298 of 312 laps around the 1-mile oval. And for as strong as Bell was, his 50 laps led were just fifth-most of the six different leaders, trailing Denny Hamlin (68 laps led), Tyler Reddick (68), Ty Gibbs (57) and Martin Truex Jr. (55) but ahead of Ford’s Todd Gilliland, who led the 14 laps that Toyota didn’t.
“For Toyota, this was a momentous win,” said David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development USA.
MORE: Full Phoenix recap
Eight months from Sunday, a Cup championship will be awarded at the same track. Last November, Bell was the only Toyota in the hunt for a title and had plenty of long-run speed — but hardly got to show it after a brake rotor exploded at Lap 109. The good news? The team didn’t seem to lose any of that speed in the four months since.
“It’s a little bit cathartic,” crew chief Adam Stevens said. “We felt like we were going to be really competitive in the race last time. We again started just missing the balance a little bit. Had one attempt to fix it, then blew that rotor just a few laps later.
“If anything, we built off that this weekend. We were definitely, definitely better this week. But everything is so new, a new tire combination. We were fortunate enough to be part of that test in December. It’s a new aero package for the field. A new body for Toyota. There’s just a lot of ‘new’ in there. It took a lot of different setups to really get the balance back.
“Credit to my guys. My new engineer William (Hartman) really dug in there along with myself and Bell, came up with something we thought was going to work, and it did. We’re pretty pleased.”
Phoenix has historically been a dismal track for the Toyotas in the Next Gen era, with the automaker leading a total of 15 laps in the four Cup races since 2022. That changed in a big way Sunday, with the manufacturer sweeping the top five best average running positions, per NASCAR’s loop data.
Reddick (4.75) and Hamlin (5.98) led the field in that stat through Sunday’s race, but the two nearly converged at Lap 215 in a battle for the lead. On Reddick’s left, Hamlin washed up the track, bounced off Reddick’s door and spun. Ultimately, Reddick finished 10th and Hamlin 11th. But Chris Gabehart, crew chief of Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, left plenty content with what he saw.
“Realistically, I thought we made bigger jumps on Friday and bigger jumps on Saturday than I thought was attainable for Sunday,” Gabehart told NASCAR.com. “I thought a clean Sunday (would be) if we could compete inside the top five — about what you saw. If we could do that, that’s as much as I can realistically hope for where we’ve been at this track. So I hate seeing that we made the mistake, but we did make the mistake racing for the lead.”
WATCH: Hamlin spins in battle for lead
Despite celebrating the win, Bell cautioned that what we see come November may be a different picture. Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson and William Byron were two of the Championship 4 contenders last fall, with Byron qualifying on the pole position. On Sunday, Larson was the team’s highest finishing driver in 14th place while Byron, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman finished 18th, 19th and 20th, respectively.
“The Hendrick cars clearly missed it this week, right? They’re not going to miss it in November whenever a championship is on the line and they’ve had however many races to get their setup dialed in,” Bell said. “Clearly the JGR cars and the Toyota group hit on the setup the best. We saw that in 2022 whenever Next Gen was first introduced, the Fords smoked everybody this race. It just takes time with these changes to optimize it.
“We’re on the winning side of it this time. But the field is going to be tighter, and I would expect the favorites to be up front whenever we come back in November.”
Phoenix is not the only 1-mile oval on the NASCAR calendar — but no other track truly replicates it, giving the spring race a unique level of importance. World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway — at 1.25 miles — has two asymmetrical corners but not a distinct tri-oval. New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a flat mile-long track with symmetrical corners and straights. The 0.75-mile Richmond Raceway looks closest to Phoenix, but its tri-oval sweeps as opposed to Phoenix’s steeply-banked dogleg.
“There’s no doubt it’s the closest thing you have to compare to,” Gabehart said. “Because people will talk about Gateway and Richmond and Loudon, but there’s no Phoenix. And certainly, those that are behind will want to look towards the Gateways and the Loudons to say, ‘Ah, maybe this will work for Phoenix.’ And those that did run well today know that while they’re similar, they’re not the same. So everyone’s gonna look at this race really close and go to work and figure out how to get better at it. We’ll be no different.
“Certainly we overachieved as the 11 car most of the weekend, and the 20 was excellent in the race just like he was in practice. So Joe Gibbs Racing has a lot of good data leaving here for sure.”
Gabehart’s surprise in the gains made throughout the weekend came partially due to the fact that the team took a drastically different approach into the weekend.
“I was purposeful about keeping the setup on a certain side of the balance and forcing him (Hamlin) out of his comfort zone and just try to race a race that way,” Gabehart said. “And while it was unfortunate that we had to go to the back, I actually saw it pay a lot of dividends when we did because we could pass a lot of cars and drive back up through there. So I know it’s the right direction.
“It is out of his comfort zone a little bit and we still have some things to refine. You know, took a pretty big step to get to where we were. And that’s the great thing about NASCAR racing, right? So I look at Christopher Bell and what they ran and it’s just a different driver and it’s a different team and they look at it slightly different way. And while we all have the ‘same car and the same parts,’ there’s infinite amounts of combinations to put them all together, and they’re just putting them all together a little bit better at this track.”
Better indeed. Bell has had plenty of speed since the start of the 2023 season, but execution, luck or a combined lack of either often sank their results before the checkered flag. The No. 20 team performed at maximum potential Sunday — and that could be dangerous for the field.
“I just hope that this gives a little bit more insight to the world the capability that the 20 team has,” Bell said.” I feel like the last two years through the Next Gen era, myself and everyone inside of our team have seen glimpses of the potential, but haven’t really been able to live it to fruition yet.
“I mean, I say this a lot, and the rest is up to us to make it happen, but I feel like this is just the beginning. Making the final four and winning one or two races a year, that’s not our final goal. We don’t want to be a one- or two-win team a year. We want to be the championship contender year after year, multiple race wins year after year.”
Win No. 1 is in the books for 2024.