It’s not been Christopher Bell’s year so far. Coming off the back of four wins and 18 top-10 finishes in 2025, he was expected to be firmly in championship contention again. But instead, he has been left frustrated, repeatedly missing out on wins despite showing race-winning pace.

“It didn’t work out; some of it is bad luck, and I’ve made a couple of mistakes,” he said recently, referring to the incidents this season that have hurt his championship hopes so far. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has now been forced to reassess his priorities for the rest of the season.

Christopher Bell is far from giving up

“We don’t think that the championship mindset has wavered, and we still think that we still have a shot at it,” Bell told NASCAR insider Matt Weaver in a recent conversation.

While fellow Toyota drivers like Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin have enjoyed dominant stretches this season, Bell has instead found himself battling constant frustration and misfortune, despite his car showing strong pace. So now, his focus has shifted toward damage control, making the playoffs, and ultimately chasing the championship.

“At the beginning of the year, it’s like, all right, we’re going to win the regular season championship, have the number one seed going into the chase. And then week 2, 3, 4, Reddick’s, you know, getting a big gap on the field, and it’s like, okay, maybe we’re not going to be able to get that regular season championship, let’s just run, you know, top whatever. And now here we are, 12 races in or however far we are, and we’re outside the top 10 in the regular season standings,” he said.

In Atlanta, Bell was battling Bubba Wallace for the win during the overtime restart on Lap 271. But a hard push from Carson Hocevar sent Bell into the outside wall, ending what looked like a potential first win of the season. Then, in Phoenix, Bell was putting together another stellar outing, leading 176 laps. But a late caution handed the win to Ryan Blaney after Team Penske came up with the better strategy.

To make matters even worse, Bell had one of the fastest cars of the season at Bristol. But a speeding penalty sent him to the back of the field, where he later brushed the wall, spun, and broke a toe link.

With five race wins so far, Tyler Reddick sits at the top of the table. Meanwhile, Hamlin, with just one race win but strong consistency, is second. But despite having led over 300 laps so far, Bell sits in 11 place, far from even contending for the Regular Season championship.

However, he is still right in the spot to make it to the Chase and battle it out for this year’s Cup title: “I do think that we’re still capable of chasing the championship at the end of the year. Clearly, the regular season title is out the window at this point. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he added.

The only thing Bell feels the team needs to overcome in its pursuit of a championship is bad luck.

“The last couple of years, we’ve been great in the chase. And so I think if we do what we’re capable of doing and hopefully we’re getting all of the misfortune out of the way early, I think we’ll still be in position at the end of the year,” he said.

Somehow, the #20 team was extremely consistent in the final ten races of the 2025 season. Bell clinched four top-five finishes in that period, one of which was a race win, and in 2024, he had six top-five runs in the final ten races.

Unlike the elimination-style playoffs, the Chase format will give consistent drivers like him a better shot at winning the title. Undoubtedly, too, Bell was one of the drivers NASCAR identified as benefiting the most from the Chase format after Chase Elliott, and that is exactly what he is now relying on.

The top 16 drivers will make it to the Chase as the contenders for the championship. Kevin Harvick had earlier claimed that drivers would have to be within the top 5 to have a realistic chance of winning the title.

Bell, however, thinks it’s possible: “I think that if we can get into that top 5 in the regular season standings, which at this point is still doable, then we should have a shot at it.”