Bell, Gibbs power Joe Gibbs Racing duo to top-five results at COTA

AUSTIN, Texas -- Through the opening two NASCAR Cup Series races in 2026, nothing had gone the way of Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs. Both drivers responded in a big way in Sunday's DuraMax Texas Grand Prix Powered by RelaDyne at Circuit of The Americas. Entering COTA, the JGR teammates were buried outside the top 30 in points, tallying 42 points combined. It wasn't for a lack of speed, however, as Bell was wrecked from behind while running inside the top 10 in the final 10 laps of the Daytona 500. Last weekend in overtime at EchoPark Speedway, Carson Hocevar filled a hole and nudged the No. 20 Toyota from the front row and into the outside wall. No such trouble found the teammates in Texas. Bell nabbed a third-place finish while Gibbs took the checkered flag fourth, both earning their best respective finishes of 2026 so far. MORE: COTA results | At-track photos  An added emphasis were on points for both Bell and Gibbs at COTA in different ways. Adam Stevens, crew chief of the No. 20 car, elected to flip the stages to put Bell in a position to capitalize come the final stage. Sophomore Cup crew chief Tyler Allen's play was to keep Gibbs out for stage points, which included the Stage 2 victory, Gibbs' first stage win at a road course. Each time Gibbs dropped to the middle of the field after pitting, the No. 54 car surged forward. "There was so much going on with strategy today that my team did a great job with that," Gibbs said. "I just stayed after it and listened to them and brought it home for a good finish." Bell, however, wasn't as pleased as Gibbs. The handling for him wasn't as secure as Gibbs' No. 54 Toyota, as he slipped late in runs on multiple occasions, including a freefall outside the top 10 during Stage 1. The bold strategy call for Stevens was to pit Bell during a caution with 20 laps remaining, believing a fresh set of Goodyear tires could power him forward. Power, indeed. Restarting outside the top 10, Bell rallied to third over the final 16-lap stint, pressuring Shane van Gisbergen for second position in the race's final laps. Ultimately, he couldn't work past either SVG or eventual race winner Tyler Reddick, with Bell earning 34 points in third. "We were super aggressive on strategy, jumping the stages, keeping our track position the best that we could," Bell noted. "We gambled on making an extra pit stop in the third stage and it got us a good finish out of it, but clearly, I wasn't going to run with the top guys. "We knew that we would run good. We honestly thought we would run better than we did. We got a good finish out of it, but we ran worse than where we finished. This team does a good job of grinding out races, that's for sure. We were there whenever it mattered and got a good finish out of it." By chasing stage points and finishing fourth overall, Gibbs netted 48 points, trailing only Reddick for the most in the race. He leaped Bell and 15 other drivers in the regular-season standings, bumping up to 17th and is the lead driver for JGR through three events. Bell jumped seven positions himself, now sitting 24th in the regular-season battle, nine points below Ryan Preece who currently sits on the cutline for The Chase. "We've been fast all year, just had crappy luck and not good finishes," Gibbs added. "Just keep going: good finish, good points day. Wish we could have won." Both JGR drivers are thrilled to get away from superspeedways and road courses, despite their usual prowess while making left- and right-handed turns. With Tyler Reddick's scorching start -- becoming the first driver in NASCAR history to win the first three Cup races of the season -- Bell and the No. 20 car are 127 points behind the championship lead despite entering the season as one of the favorites to win the championship. "I'm just glad that we're done with the lottery races," Bell said. The series heads further west to Phoenix Raceway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), where Bell has won the last two spring events.