Can someone catch the quick start of Christopher Bell? – Speedway Digest

The Christopher Bell by Joe Gibbs Racing undoubtedly begins to beat the Nascar Cup Series Two-Race Western Swing than the driver. The 30-year-old is the defending winner of the Shriner's Children's 500 on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, FOX Deportes, MRN and Siriusxm Nascar Radio) and has won two of the first three series races this year, including the last two.

A win on Saturday would make Bell the first driver to win three consecutive races in the next generation of cars. Its dominance extends over 2025 over 2025, all drivers with 10 top five and 12 top 10 places carry out in the last 15 races that go back to August. No other driver has more than seven top five in this period.

“I have no news that I can send to one of them, but it's nice to be able to use the racing victory,” said Bell, after winning in Austin, Texas. “Last year there were so many racing wins that escaped when I had the fastest car. In the past two weeks in Atlanta and here I have won without the fastest car, so it's really nice to get it back that I lost last year.

“I'm curious to see what will come. We have high expectations, high hopes and goals for this year. To be honest, in the past few years at Joe Gibbs Racing in this Auto No. 20 I have not fulfilled the standards that I consider for myself. Our goal in 2025 is to do that, or my goal is to do that for myself. I know that Adam Stevens feels the same. He believes that we are capable of many great things. We haven't done that in the season of the Nascar Cup Series. Maybe the year will be in 2025. “

There is no doubt that Bell's JGR teammate hope that his success will become contagious in the early season. The three-time Daytona 500 winner and multi-year championship candidate Denny Hamlin is located in the 17th points. The driver of Toyota No. 11 started this race from the pole last year and has a few victories in the desert (2012, 2019).

Chase Briscoe, who earned the Daytona 500 Pole in his first start for JGR, took 15th place after Team No. 19 won a penalty call from Nascar this week. Ty Gibbs, who won the NASCAR XFINITY Series Championship at Phoenix, is 36. In the overall ranking and is still looking for his first top 10 of the season.

Despite Bell's strong start, the winner of Daytona 500 William Bryron leads the Cup series classification in Phoenix and leads a two-point lead ahead of Penske's Ryan Blaney team, who won the series championship in Phoenix two years ago. Tyler Reddick from 23xi Racing, last year's regular champion of the regular season, is third in the overall ranking, five points behind Byron. Chase Elliott von Bell and Hendrick Motorsports are both 21 points back.

Eight different drivers deserved top 10 positions in two of the first three races, but nobody in all three placed in the top 10. Byron, Reddick and Bell are the only drivers with two top 5 surfaces.

While the season has already produced a repetition winner, the competition was intensive, with a series record-125 lead changes in the first three races.

The two-time series champion Kyle Busch developed as the leader after a difficult season of 2024. At the end of the last week, he led two top 10 places this year. His 55 laps led fourth place in No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet this season, a positive sign after he missed the playoffs and did not win a race for the first time in 20 years.

Busch leads all active drivers in rounds that are run by a mile in Phoenix (1,190) and in pole positions (four) on the desert route.

“I would like to think that we are ahead of the game there,” said Busch. “We are in a better place or in a better position. We had some good settings in the low season – some good engineers and some good people from other teams – to increase our performance. Whenever you do that and you hunt good people, it is what you want, right? You go for the performance you can bring to the table. So fresh ideas, different things and so on.

“You won't revise us, that's sure,” added Busch. “But I think the next test will definitely be the next two weeks – after Phoenix, the short track, a place where we have been fighting recently – to see how we can surround this program.”

Joey Logano from Team Penske runs all drivers with 126 laps this season, but still has to publish a top 10 place. His teammate Austin Cindric has 106 rounds, but has only a top 10 result. Josh Berry von Wood Brothers Racing has managed 56 laps, but is still looking for a top 10 finish.

Through Bell's search for history, the British driver Katherine Legge will start her Nascar Cup series and only become the eighth woman to start a race in modern times (since 1972) and the first since Danica Patrick in the Daytona 500 2018.

Legge drives No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet and replaces the regular driver BJ McLeod for the weekend. The 44-year-old has earlier stock exchange experiences, most recently in the ARCA season start in Daytona, where she took 39th place after an early accident. She also has five NASCAR XFINITY series starts that go back to her debut from 2018 in Mid-Ohio.

As a veteran of open-wheel and sports car races, Legge drove two full Indycar season (2006-07) and made four Indianapolis 500 starts with a best finish from 22nd in 2012. This year she gave her Chili Bowl Nationals debut and is the first driver to be included in the Long Beach Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Patrick was the last driver who drove in the Phoenix race and drove the 11 -cup series with a best place in 2015.

The opening training will take place on Saturday at 2:05 p.m. ET, followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying at 3:10 p.m. ET sessions for Amazon Prime. Hamlin won the poles for this race last year.