Christopher Bell hangs on for Cup win at Atlanta
HAMPTON, Ga. — The caution fell at the right time for Christopher Bell to hold off Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson and win Sunday’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Locked in a three-wide battle with Hocevar and Larson underneath him, Bell was out in front when the caution fell for Josh Berry and others wrecking and blocking the track on the backstretch, entering turn three.
“I’ll tell you what, that right there is what you dream of, to be able to restart on the first or second row in a green/white checkered in a speedway. You never know how those things are going to play out, but I’ll be the first to tell you, I love superspeedways,” Bell said, with a laugh.
Bell has now finished sixth or better in each of the last five superspeedway races, except for last Sunday’s Daytona 500 when he crashed while racing for the lead.
“I don’t know. This style of racing has just always been a little bit of a struggle for me, and throughout the beginning of the day we obviously were just stuck way in the back. Adam and these boys back here, they did an amazing job getting this thing fixed up to where I could just hold my foot down. That’s what it’s all about. You have to be able to stay in the throttle, and that last half of the race we were at our best,” Bell said.
Bell, Hocevar, Larson, Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and John Hunter Nemechek rounded out the top-10 finishers.
Blaney and Chastain both talked to Hocevar after the race. Hocevar bumped Blaney and spun him with 25 to go. Then, in overtime, he didn’t go with Chastain in the manner that Chastain thought he would as a manufacturer teammate.
Still, Hocevar came away with his best career finish in the Cup Series.
“There is some stuff I have to learn and clean up a little bit, but I feel like we put ourselves in the perfect opportunity to win the race. I have never had that opportunity really before, especially on a big superspeedway. So just big thanks to Spire Motorsports. They deserve all the praise, and I just get to hold the wheel, run wide open and try to put myself in a decent spot. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best spot but was just one spot short,” Hocevar said.
Meanwhile, in six previous Gen 7-era races at Atlanta, Larson had only finished one of them, in July 2022, but failed to finish inside the top-10 (13h). Overall, Larson had never earned a stage win in 40 stage-era superspeedway starts.
Larson accomplished both, winning stage two and finishing third.
“We had a lot of fun. It was super intense. It was my first legit finish here at Atlanta Motor Speedway since the reconfiguration, so I’ll take it. I feel like we learned a lot and I feel like we can be a lot better with the balance of our racecar to be a little bit more on offense while we are in traffic. We just came up a little bit short,” Larson said.
Larson led four times for 12 laps — the third-most laps he’s led in a single Gen 7 superspeedway race (20 races).
Through the Field
The top-three lap leaders — Joey Logano, Josh Berry and Austin Cindric — all failed to finish inside the top-10.
Logano led eight times for 83 laps of the first 157 laps but only had a 12th-place finish to show for it. He finished 10th and third in the stages but struggled to rally back to the front when it mattered.
Berry led seven times for a career-high 56 laps led and won the first stage in what was shaping up to be a dream race for him until contact on the backstretch sent him crashing from fifth to 25th.
Three spots back, in 28th and behind the wall, was Cindric who led three times for 47 laps and was racing Larson for the win with two laps to go. Larson tried to clear himself by Cindric but ended up putting Cindric in the wall and setting off a wreck that took out Larson’s teammate, William Byron.
“Not clear,” Cindric said over the radio.
Byron finished 27th, three laps down. He led six laps.
AJ Allmendinger finished 14th and earned a bonus point for running the fastest lap of the race, 29.541 seconds. Kaulig Racing’s No. 16 car also earned the fastest lap and one bonus point in Saturday night’s Xfinity Series race.
Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Recap
Stage one went caution-free and saw Ford dominate, leading every lap.
STAGE 1 TOP-10 (LAP 60): Berry, Cindric, Byron, Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Todd Gilliland, Blaney, Hocevar, Logano.
In stage two, Ford continued their dominance through cautions on lap 83 for Ty Dillon wrecking in turn four, lap 103 for Erik Jones wrecking on the backstretch, lap 135 for Todd Gilliland blowing a tire and dropping a tire carcass on the track and lap 151 for a multi-car wreck involving Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Corey LaJoie.
The cautions, combined with the track cooling down, broke the Blue Ovals’ stranglehold on the field. Alex Bowman became the first non-Ford driver to lead a green-flag lap on lap 141. While Logano and the Fords hustled back to lead double-digit laps after this, the Bowties came back and claimed stage one with Larson out in front.
STAGE 2 TOP-10 (LAP 160): Larson, Wallace, Logano, Byron, Bowman, Reddick, Hocevar, Stenhouse, Cindric, Noah Gragson
In the final stage, defending winner Daniel Suarez saw his race end on lap 185. Gilliland came up into Ty Gibbs and Suarez came down into Gibbs, causing contact that took Suarez, Cole Custer, Cody Ware, Noah Gragson and JJ Yeley out.
Gibbs’ day came to an end on lap 206 when he popped a tire in turn two while Bowman and Chris Buescher crashed entering turn one.
On lap 235, Ryan Blaney went for a spin after Carson Hocevar bumped him. Blaney wasn’t happy with Hocevar.
“I told you, 77. Absolute weapon. He’s just a moron. He just runs right in the back of you, he has zero idea of where to bump someone. It’s been the whole race,” Blaney said.
Hocevar and Blaney survived crashes late in the race to finish inside the top-5 but couldn’t beat Christopher Bell.
Bell now has 10 wins in his NASCAR Cup Series career. He is the 66th driver to reach double-digit wins in the 77-year history of the series. He is tied with Donnie Allison, Clint Bowyer and Sterling Marlin on the all-time wins list.
Bell and the Cup Series field heads to where he finished runner-up to William Byron last year — Circuit of the Americas.
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com