Cristopher Bell: NASCAR Cup Chase 2026 Preview

A winless yet consistent regular season sends Christopher Bell to his sixth NASCAR Cup Series postseason appearance.

Bell will enter the 2026 Chase as the sixth seed as the lowest ranked Joe Gibbs Racing driver.

He narrowly missed out on placing inside the top five during the regular season. But Bell can find his way back to victory lane in the final ten races for retribution.

An eighth second-place finish or more might haunt Bell if he goes winless and here as how he got to seven.

String of Seconds

Prior to the all-star break Christopher Bell suffered the same amount of misfortune as his teammate Chase Briscoe. The Joe Gibbs Racing teammates each found themselves unexpectantly on the outside of the championship contending spots early in the season.

Bell had to claw his way back into the picture. His first runners-up finish came at Phoenix Raceway to Ryan Blaney. A spot that would go onto define his regular season. But he would fail to reach that high for quite some time thereafter.

Seven of his next ten races after Phoenix would see the Oklahoman finish 17th or worse. As a result, he fell to as low as 11th in the regular season standings. What came next were his season defining runs so far.

He opened up the post-all star stretch with back-to-back second place finishes after a rain shortened Coca-Cola 600 and Nashville.

At Michigan the very next weekend, Bell would hit a bump in the road when he and Chase Elliott collided in a hard wreck in the final stage.

Elliott left uninjured but not Bell. He would sustain a broken left wrist which only left him truly disadvantaged for two weekends out of the six week recovery.

In fact, he captured another pair of second place finishes in the midst of his recovery at Chicagoland and EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta.

By that time the series took notice of his fifth runners-up finish. The proverbial monkey had climbed right on Bell’s back. He finished out the season with two additional seconds at Indianapolis and Iowa for a staggering seven before his first victory.

While the win would be nice, his run of form during the final nine races of the regular season brought him within touching distance of the fifth seed.

Bell averaged an amazing 6.67 finish during that final stretch which will give him an added boost heading into the Chase.

Struggling on Saturday’s

But there is one noticeable reason for why the team has struggled to park their Toyota in victory lane.

Qualifying might be the root cause of all these finishes. Since joining the organization back in 2022, he has averaged a starting position of 13 or better.

Last season it dropped by two positions and now this season it has continued to drop by another two positions.

Worst average start since joining JGR and second worst average finish, worst since his first season with the team.

2026 Chase Outlook

For Bell, a championship will be on the table in 2026.

The sixth seed is just outside the ideal range to truly have a good shot at the title but the driver of the No. 20 has enough postseason experience and positive momentum of late to make a deep run.

Bell has found victory lane in five of the final ten venues. They include Phoenix, Charlotte, Martinsville, Homestead, and his most recent victory at Bristol during the postseason in 2025.

One thing he has excelled at regardless of his current metrics is finding the front. He sits fourth-best in the series in laps led and has good tracks remaining in the schedule to find some more.

If he can find his footing and victory lane, the sky’s the limit. If not, there’s no telling how many more runners-up results are in the cards for Christopher Bell this season.

Ceiling: Champion Floor: Eighth

Bell’s 2026 Overview

2026 Stats

• 0 wins
  • The highest placing chase driver without a win
• 1 pole
  • Las Vegas
• 4 stage wins
• 11 top-fives, 13 top-tens and 4 DNF’s
• 15.0 avg start, 14.4 avg finish
  • Avg. Running Position of 13.391 (seventh-best)
• 559 laps led (fourth-best)
  • led season-high 176 laps in runners-up result at Phoenix
• Driver Rating of 91.4 (seventh-best)

Strengths

• Short track maestro
• Top-tier Toyota speed and finding the front with it
• Second-places could win the war

Weaknesses

• Long cold streaks
• Getting over the winless hump
• Qualifying
• Superspeedways