Christopher Bell led the final laps at Pocono, but his fuel tank had other plans. The #20 driver was leading the final few laps for quite a while, but was running on fumes. He didn’t have enough fuel to make it to the end, but was trying to stretch it for as long as possible. In the end, he failed and had to dive in for a top-up on the last lap. Although it failed, and Denny Hamlin took the win, Brad Keselowski’s breakdown reveals how close Bell came, and why his fuel strategy nearly toppled Hamlin.

Brad Keselowski Analyzed the Strategy That Christopher Bell Employed

He told Sports on Prime, “So I spoke about him pitting on lap 108. Green flag, lap 111. Christopher Bell spends about the first 20 laps, 131, running his car full pace. You’re going to see that here, what that means. About lap 137, he starts fuel-saving. Stevie, you talked about this on the telecast, but for viewers at home, what does this actually mean? I’m going to play it out so you can see it.”

“What you’re going to notice here is how much further back his car is going to be,” he added. “Look at how much he’s slowing down; you can see this on the orange line where it says throttle. He’s lifting it over here, keeping it in the same gear, or he’s going to start keeping it in the same gear. Look how much slower his pace gets. He’s going to end up going from a 53.83, from the bottom of the screen on the left, all the way to a 54.62.”

In essence, Bell dropped his pace by around eight-tenths of a second per lap. All the while, Denny Hamlin was hunting him down and eventually passed him for the lead and the win. His crew chief was targeting at least a 4th place finish, meaning that he would also lose places to William Byron and Tyler Reddick. Bell was probably banking on a caution to save him, but that was a double-edged sword. Pitting would mean that he would lose track position, so the game plan was to manage his race.

As the race wore on, Bell’s fuel crisis deepened. By lap 150, Christopher Bell was entering critical territory on his fuel. By lap 158, he was fully focused on fuel saving. Keselowski pointed out that Bell was avoiding shifting gears, lifting, and coating very early. Additionally, he was trying his hardest not to use the brakes, or that would kill any momentum. By the time he bailed out and pitted, Christopher Bell was running two seconds off the pace. Bell’s fuel-saving strategy was deliberate, not forced; he chose to stretch fuel, hoping for a caution.

Though the strategy failed, Keselowski noted it was sound; a caution with 10 laps remaining would have delivered the win. The strategy has worked before, just ask his own teammate Chase Briscoe.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has a big test next weekend

Now that the three-turn circuit is done, Christopher Bell will be wary of the upcoming race weekend. The Cup Series drivers head to the Coronado Street Circuit in San Diego, a brand new venue. However, that is not what has Bell a little concerned. Let’s go back to a week ago at the Michigan International Speedway. During the race, Chase Elliott lost control and his car slid into the outside wall, and then his car snapped towards the outside wall and crashed.

Unfortunately, Bell happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The result was that he was collected in the accident and sent hard into the outside SAFER barriers. Owing to this, he broke his left wrist, which will definitely take a while to heal. At Pocono, there wasn’t such a problem, since he only turned left and could avoid putting pressure on his wrist.

The bad news is that the Coronado Street Course will require him to turn left and right, which could aggravate the problem. Furthermore, the next race is at the Sonoma Raceway, another road course. Back-to-back road courses would definitely be challenging for a driver with a broken wrist, but Bell is a trooper and will want to weather through any pain.