Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota may be in the driver’s seat currently in the NASCAR Cup playoffs, but there’s still a long road ahead. That’s what Christopher Bell, who won Saturday night’s race at Bristol, says.
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Bell, along with his JGR teammates, Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin, swept the three races in the opening round of the Cup playoffs. The series now advances to the Round of 12, which is this Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
When asked during his post-race press conference if JGR is carrying a lot of swagger as a result, “I mean, it sure appears to be that way,” Bell said.
JGR’s swagger is making other teams think that if they want the championship, they’re going to have to go through the hard way to accomplish that.
“It’s just all the Toyotas are super-fast right now. I think I said it last week in my post-race interview that this is the best race cars I’ve had to drive in the Cup Series compared to the competition in my career.
“I think it goes from Joe Gibbs Racing to 23XI; they’ve been really good; even the legacy cars have had an amazing performance the last couple weeks. That’s the good news.” But of course, there has to be the not-so-good news, as well.
“The bad news is we’re not running (the championship and season-ending race at) Phoenix next week and there’s still a long way to go to get there,” Bell said. “I can promise you, whenever we get to Phoenix, it’s not going to be a runaway. No matter who’s in that Final Four, it’s always a dogfight. It’s always a good race.”
No matter if it’s points leader Hamlin, second-ranked Briscoe, or Bell, JGR both singularly and collectively has to get off to a strong start at New Hampshire. The organization has had a collective 144 Cup starts at the flat one-mile oval, with 14 wins, 52 top five, and 82 top 10 finishes.
But things get a bit more difficult historically in the following two races in the Round of 12 at Kansas Speedway and the Charlotte Roval road course. In 135 collective Cup starts, JGR drivers have earned eight wins at Kansas, along with 42 top five and 66 top 10 finishes.
The Roval, on the other hand, is arguably one of JGR’s weakest tracks: In 28 collective Cup starts, JGR drivers have collected only one win, seven top five, and 10 top 10 finishes.
JGR Must Get Off To A Strong Start at New Hampshire
That’s why Loudon is so important for JGR to continue what it’s done so far in the first three races. It’s very possible that if the organization’s three drivers continue their torrid collective pace in the next six playoff races, they could make up three of the Championship 4 slots to battle it out for the 2025 Cup crown.
Bell is confident that JGR can maintain the pace that allowed it to dominate the opening Round of 16.
“We are in a really good spot right now, we as in the Toyota group, and specifically Joe Gibbs Racing,” Bell said. “But we’ve got a long way to go to get to Phoenix, and it’s going to be a hard road, and everybody knows that.”
However, there’s a bit more bad news for the JGR camp that Bell failed to mention or may not be aware of: since the start of the current 16-driver, four-round playoff format in 2014, only two drivers have had the best overall finishing average in the 10-race playoffs and gone on to win the championship: Martin Truex Jr. in 2017 and defending and three-time Cup champ Joey Logano in 2018.
