"Definitely lacking a little bit": Christopher Bell diagnoses the current state of his season despite three wins 

Christopher Bell spoke about the state of his season after 12 weeks of racing. In 2025, Bell is experiencing the best start to a season so far in his Cup career.

The #20 driver already has three consecutive wins at Atlanta, COTA, and Phoenix, followed by a 12th-place finish at Las Vegas and a 29th-place finish at Homestead. However, since Homestead, while he has run up front, in contention for the win, he has not been able to win. He finished in second place at Martinsville, third at Darlington, eighth and ninth at Bristol and Texas, and second again at Kansas last Sunday.

In the pre-race conference, Bell was asked how he had viewed his season so far and whether he found not being able to win despite running up front frustrating. The #20 driver claimed that in his opinion, he has been finishing 'a lot better' than where he should ideally be finishing in the last few races.

"We were fast at the beginning of the year. The last couple of weeks we’ve been heavy on the intermediate package and one thing we’ve learned is that we’ve not been as strong on the intermediate package as we would have hoped to have been. We need to be faster, for sure, on that intermediate package specifically," Bell said.

Bell mentioned that ahead of this Sunday's race at North Wilkesboro, a low-downforce short track, he felt optimistic about his shot at another win. He also remarked that the #20 team was 'still searching' for that in the high downforce side of things.

When asked whether he's surprised he hasn't won again this season after Phoenix, Christopher Bell said:

"Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m not surprised that we haven’t won because winning is very hard, but I’ve definitely been surprised about just lacking pace on the intermediate tracks. Hopefully, we make gains on it.

"I feel like Kansas was a little bit better than what we had at Texas and Darlington, so if we can make another step like that going into Charlotte, maybe we will be contending for the win, but we are definitely lacking a little bit at this point in time."

Notably, Christopher Bell was the winner of last season's Coke 600 at Charlotte, which is next after NWS this weekend.

Christopher Bell speaks about his chances of clinching the NASCAR regular season title

Despite his three wins this season and three Top 5 finishes, Christopher Bell is third in the regular season standings. He's 85 points behind the leader, Kyle Larson, and 35 points behind William Byron in second place.

When he was asked about his chances of winning the regular season title, Bell claimed that it was 'definitely possible.' In fact, he mentioned that the title was 'up for grabs' for a lot of drivers who were inside the Top 10 of the regular season standings right now.

Speaking about the difference between him and the two HMS drivers above him, Bell said:

"Losing ground is a good indication that we are not running as well as we need to be running. Just starts with qualifying. Qualifying leads into stage one points. We just haven’t been running well enough to earn stage points. Like I said, we’ve been squeaking out good finishes, but we haven’t been performing well enough through the races to get those stage points, and that has been the difference between myself and the two Hendrick cars up front."

Christopher Bell emphasized the need to be 'running better,' something he believed the #20 team was well aware of and working hard towards.