Christopher Bell knew he had one of the fastest cars capable of contending for the victory at Chicagoland Speedway. In the end, however, he left the “Windy City” with his fourth runner-up finish of the 2026 season.
“Toyotas are fast — it seems like a monkey can drive them. So, it’s just disappointing whenever you get beat by another monkey,” Bell told TNT Sports after the checkered flag.
The late rally, however, was nearly all for naught. When Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill tangled on Lap 47, Bell collided with Todd Gilliland exiting his pit stall after changing two tires. It hurt the stability of the No. 20 Toyota, dropping Bell to 12th at the end of the opening stage.
“I felt like I lost a lot of car performance,” Bell told reporters at Chicagoland. “It was just really loose, really loose, and then I guess they got it fixed up. It was pretty fast at the end.”
Two-time championship-winning crew chief Adam Stevens took responsibility for the collision, admitting he failed to guide Bell safely out of his pit stall. Stevens jokingly called himself a “dumbass” for not getting the No. 20 Toyota clear of Gilliland before releasing Bell and for waiting until the stage break to fully assess the damage to the right-front fender of the No. 20 machine.
At the stage break, Bell pitted a handful of times for repair. Going long during a cycle of green-flag pit stops, the No. 20 car was among eight beneficiaries that had yet to pit when the caution flew for Tyler Reddick laying oil on the track from a puncture in the No. 45 car’s radiator. Stage 2 ended with five points for Bell, placing sixth.
The No. 20 Toyota truly came to life during the caution-free final stage. Bell made his final pit stop on Lap 217 – two laps later than Chase Briscoe and one lap after race leader William Byron. The differing pit strategies paid off for Briscoe, who leapfrogged Byron during the green-flag pit cycle to take the lead. Meanwhile, Bell rejoined the race more than six seconds behind the new leader, leaving himself with a significant deficit to overcome over the closing 50 laps.
Using the two-lap fresher tires to his advantage, Bell chased down Byron and passed him in the final 10 laps of the race. He set his attention on Briscoe, another two seconds ahead and quickly tracked down the No. 19 car. Sniffing the lead at the white flag, he drove into Turn 1 and got tight behind AJ Allmendinger, allowing Briscoe to scoot away to the win by .274 seconds.
“I just need to replay the last two runs, whenever it went green,” Bell told TNT. “I was really struggling with the handling of my car early on in the race and I still had a lot of pace. I keyed up on the radio and said, ‘If we get this thing driving good, we’re going to have a shot at it.’ They made a great adjustment and got the car driving great the last run. I was a straightaway-plus behind, it seemed like. I was soft on my green-flag entry, for sure, which gave up a little bit of time.
“Just need to go back and study that green-flag cycle and how I lost so much time to the first couple of cars. It was a good day and we almost went to Victory Lane.”
With three laps remaining, Briscoe believed Bell was poised to make the race-winning pass. Bell closed rapidly with a strong run through Turns 3 and 4, but he couldn’t generate enough momentum to get alongside the No. 19 car for the lead.
“[Bell] about won the race in (Turns) 3 and 4 with two or three (laps) to go,” Briscoe said in his post-race press conference. “I caught a lapped car, and we were going to have to run the top because the lap cars were going to run the bottom and I kind of ran a little too high. He was so close to getting to my left rear and if he gets to my left rear, he wins the race. I was able to barely squirt in front of him.
“He was going to catch me either way, but the lapped cars made it happen way faster. At the end, the last two laps, the lapped cars are what saved me because it made it to where you didn’t have a clean lane.”
Bell settled for his third runner-up finish in the last seven events dating back to the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He finished second the following week at Nashville Superspeedway before fracturing his wrist the next race at Michigan International Speedway in a vicious crash with Chase Elliott that measured at 63 Gs.
Like Nashville, the three Joe Gibbs Racing drivers of Briscoe, Bell and Denny Hamlin swept the podium. Toyota claimed seven of the top 10 positions for the first time in history.
Bell told TNT out of frustration: “Just a second-place driver, man. That’s what I am.”