Joe Gibbs must be more than glad about how things have been going for his team so far in the 2023 season. With three of his four drivers dominating the NASCAR Cup Series table, it is a pretty sight for any owner. Having said that, Christopher Bell had an outing to forget at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. What’s more worrying for Joe Gibbs would be Bell’s latest comments.

Safe to say, the 28-year-old has had an impressive campaign this year. With a win at the Bristol Motor Speedway and five top-5 and 10 top-10 finishes, Bell has made things look effortlessly easy. In fact, he looked quite ambitious before the race at NHMS on Monday.

Dejected Christopher Bell leaves Joe Gibbs disappointed ahead of the race at Pocono Raceway

The Toyota cars have been rocking the Cup Series charts for quite a while now. In fact, with Martin Truex Jr, Christopher Bell, and Denny Hamlin all in the top four, there’s not much else Joe Gibbs could have asked for. With Truex Jr winning at NHMS, the odds of a Joe Gibbs Racing driver winning the regular season have only got stronger.

As a matter of fact, even Bell was quite optimistic about his chances to win the regular season after winning the pole in New Hampshire on Monday. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned as he drastically lost his track position before crashing in the dying laps of the race. This resulted in a 29th-place finish, slipping 62 points behind teammate and table leader Martin Truex Jr.

With just six races left before the playoffs, Bell seems to have lost his motivation. When asked about his chances of winning the regular season, he spoke in detail about it at a press conference before the race in Pennsylvania. He said, “It’s definitely getting further out of sight that is for sure, but now it is just a matter of getting all we can. Whether that be second, third—whatever the case may be.”

Disappointed by his recent performances, Bell continued, “We’ve had a couple of really—not a couple, several really poor finishes in a row here. It would be nice to get to the checkered flag without an incident. I think our performance is certainly capable of competing for it, but the way the last few weeks have gone, I don’t know if that is realistic anymore.”

In his last three races, the Oklahoma-born driver has finished 18th or worse. While he sits in the third position on the table, his statements would surely be upsetting for Joe Gibbs to hear.

READ MORE – NASCAR Legend Blames Joe Gibbs Racing’s Disaster for Christopher Bell’s Costly Mistake During a Fiery Ultimatum

However, Coach Gibbs would find some solace in how Bell feels about the race on Sunday.

Despite recent struggles, Christopher Bell feels optimistic about the race at Pocono Raceway

While Christopher Bell remains doubtful about his chances of winning the regular season, he had a positive outlook when it came to the race on Sunday. Last year, he finished fourth at the Tricky Triangle and is feeling confident about doing well this time around. He said, “Pocono is one of the tracks that the notes from last year should corollate pretty well, because it is the second time here with the same package.”

Bell continued, “The Toyota cars got a slight body change over the offseason, so we will just have to compare notes to what we did at the other intermediates, but the intermediates have been good for us, so it is definitely a track that we can definitely perform well at…It’s a tough track that we generally see the guys who succeed here, they usually do well year after year and hopefully, I can become one of those guys at some point.”

Well, most certainly a win in Pennsylvania could do wonders for Bell. Despite him being unsure about his regular-season winning chances, a victory on Sunday could drastically help his cause. The question though is, does he have it to make it big under pressure? We shall soon find out.

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