Normandy native Christopher Bell aims for third straight trip to NASCAR Cup final four

With four races remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, Christopher Bell is once again able to fight for the championship.

After competing for the title in each of the last two seasons, the 29-year-old Norman is seeking a third straight appearance in the championship race.

But for now, his focus is on Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the first of three Round of 16 playoff races that will determine which four drivers have a chance to win the championship.

Bell finished second on the road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway last weekend, sealing his spot in the round of 16 well before the checkered flag waved.

Now the playoff schedule turns to the speedways of Vegas, Miami and Martinsville to reduce the playoff field from eight to four.

Bell enters this week second in points, 20 behind leader Kyle Larson heading into the South Point 400 in Las Vegas, scheduled for a 1:30 p.m. Sunday start on NBC.

Bell visited The Oklahoman before the round of 16 to talk about his season:

More: How family and friends helped Christopher Bell’s racing career flourish

Q: You are in your fifth Cup season and your fourth with Joe Gibbs Racing. What are you still learning from week to week at this stage of your career?

A: Oh man, you never stop learning, and I can promise you, the sport is always evolving. The cars, we had the NexGen cars at the start of the 2022 season and they have developed so much. The teams learn the settings, the drivers learn how to drive the cars better. And they look nothing like our debut in 2022. The game is constantly evolving, that’s for sure. Now I have several years under my belt in the Cup Series and I feel like I’m a little smarter than when I started. Everyone can say the same thing, but the people who are most capable of growing will be the ones who are most successful.

For the most part, your team has remained intact during your time at JGR. How beneficial was this familiarity?

Since I arrived at JGR, we certainly have the same core of people, the same team leader. We’ve had some changes to our team, but for the most part it’s the same group. What’s different is our pit crew. We had a few pit team swaps, and the team we landed on right now did an incredible job. We picked them up at the end of last year and they carried us to this championship. This year was my best year, statistically, in terms of stage wins and laps led, and I think a lot of that was due to the performance we had on pit road. If you can’t run pit road, it’s very difficult to lead laps in this sport.

How valuable is it to know you have a pit crew you can rely on, given that the margin for error on pit road is so small?

I think the NexGen car, as it’s been perfected over the last couple of years, has put even more emphasis on the pit crews, because before this car, when everyone was doing what they wanted, the cars were a little more separated. If you had a winning car that day, it was by a bigger margin than it is today. So if you had problems on pit road or one pit crew wasn’t performing as well as the others, you could pass cars on the track and make up for it. Now we drive specific cars. We have the best drivers and the best teams building them, so it gives you very little separation between the best teams. So whoever comes out on top will likely be the one to lead that relay of the race.

More: Christopher Bell, originally from Normandy, “copied and pasted” the goals of the NASCAR championship during the 5th season

The playoff schedule was interesting this year, especially in the round of 16 with a superspeedway and a road course. What did you think of the playoff schedule?

I’ll be honest, this year scared me a lot with the way the schedule played out – with Atlanta kicking off the playoffs, and then we had Talladega in the round of 16. I was nervous about it, but luckily it really worked out for the better for us. We put ourselves in a very good position.

This is the fourth consecutive year that you have reached at least the round of 16. Will playoff pressure ever become easier to handle?

I would say you learn what it takes to get through these tricks. Now, being in 2024 and being in the final four for the last two years, I would say I’m still nervous and I don’t think that’s ever going to go away. But it’s certain that knowing what to expect has become easier.

South Point 400

1:30 p.m. Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (NBC)

NASCAR playoff standings

1. Kyle Larson, +33

2. Christophe Bell, +13

3. Tyler Reddick, +10

4. William Byron, +4

5. Ryan Blaney, -4

6. Denny Hamlin, -8

7. Chase Elliott, -9

8. Joey Logano, -11 years old

This article was originally published on Oklahoman: Normandy native Christopher Bell returns in pursuit of NASCAR Cup title