Christopher Bell spent much of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season proving he belonged among the championship favorites. On Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he got one more reminder of just how difficult it is to turn that kind of consistency into a championship.
Bell finished fourth in the season finale, good enough to secure second place in the final championship standings, the best points finish of his Cup Series career. It wasn’t the grand prize he and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team wanted, but considering how the season unfolded, there wasn’t much reason to hang their heads.
Bell led 46 laps Sunday and looked like a legitimate contender for the race win. He finished third in Stage 1, improved to second in Stage 2, and appeared to have a car capable of making some noise when the race reached its final act.
Unfortunately, the final act didn’t quite go according to the script.
In a familiar story from his championship run, Bell had the speed to contend but couldn’t quite put everything together when it mattered most. A difficult restart to begin the final stage cost him valuable track position after the cars on the outside of the front row spun their tires. Bell lost several positions and struggled to regain the momentum he’d enjoyed earlier in the afternoon.
A late caution gave him another opportunity to work his way forward, and he managed to get back into the top five. But by then, the opportunity to challenge for the victory had largely disappeared. He crossed the finish line fourth, while his championship hopes ended with a runner-up finish in the standings.
Still, Bell wasn’t about to spend Sunday evening looking for reasons to be miserable. He had just put together the most consistent season of his career, and there was plenty to take away from it.
“Yeah, I’m really proud of the consistency that we had,” Bell said. “Throughout the course of even 2025, we went on that hot stretch and won a lot of races early on, then we kind of fell off.
“This year consistently we were in the mix. We were in there for contention of race wins. Obviously disappointed we didn’t win more. Yeah, just happy and thrilled and thankful that I’m in position.”
That consistency was perhaps the biggest difference between Bell’s 2025 campaign and the one he just completed. Winning races is wonderful, particularly when you’re collecting trophies at a rate that makes the rest of the garage wonder whether you’ve discovered some sort of secret mechanical advantage. But championships generally require something more than a few spectacular afternoons.
Bell and the No. 20 team were consistently competitive throughout 2026. They weren’t simply showing up, winning a race and disappearing for several weeks. They were regularly in contention, collecting strong finishes and putting themselves in position to fight for the championship.
There is, of course, a difference between being in the fight and actually winning it. Bell knows that better than most after coming up short when the pressure was highest.
He also believes the experience gives the team something to build on.
“I don’t know,” Bell said when asked whether the track behaved differently than expected Sunday. He explained that the car felt particularly strong during the hotter daytime conditions, and he expected it to improve as temperatures dropped. Instead, the final-stage restart proved costly, and he never quite recovered.
“Thankfully we had the yellow, got a good restart to end up in the top five,” he said.
“All in all, I’m really proud of our 20 group. We’ll try and do one spot better.”
One spot better. It’s a simple enough objective, although getting there in NASCAR can be about as easy as teaching a cat to operate a pit crew air gun.
Bell leaves 2026 with a career-best second-place championship finish, a season of consistency and a team that has every reason to believe it can return to the fight next year.
He didn’t get the championship trophy. But he did establish something potentially more important: The No. 20 team has become a fixture in the championship conversation.
Now it just needs to figure out how to finish the job.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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