Christopher Bell took the lead with 41 laps to go and never looked back to cruise to his first win of the season in the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
Bell's win is the seventh of his Cup career and the first of the season for not only Toyota but also a first win by a non-Chevrolet Cup driver early in the 2024 season.
Despite strategy shaking up the running order considerably over the final stage of the race -- and despite lining up 20th on the final restart -- Bell was easily able to make his way through traffic over a long run, with his drive to the front finally reaching its zenith when Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. came to pit road under green. Bell then drove away from the rest of the field, winning by more than five seconds over runner-up Chris Buescher.
Bell led a total of 50 laps on the day, with all of his laps led coming at essential times. In addition to the laps he led on his way to victory, Bell was also able to take the lead late in Stage 2 to pick up his first stage win of the season, giving him an additional playoff point to add to the five he earned by winning.
Bell's win also marked a weekend sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing, as the company also won Friday night's ARCA Menards Series race with William Sawalich and Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race with Chandler Smith.
Well behind Christopher Bell at the checkered flag, a dramatic fight for the last spot in the top five ended up playing out between the defending Cup champion and the driver who entered Phoenix as the most recent winner at the track. Ryan Blaney prevailed over Ross Chastain with a last-lap pass in Turn 4, beating him narrowly at the finish line to give him his sixth-straight top-five at Phoenix.
Despite winning two of the first three races to start the season, Sunday was a highly dissatisfying one for Hendrick Motorsports. Kyle Larson was the only Hendrick driver to finish inside the top 15 in 14th, and William Byron, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman would all end up finishing together in a cluster from 18th-20th.
They at least fared better than the Richard Childress Racing cars, which struggled throughout the weekend and were both involved in crashes on Sunday with Kyle Busch finishing one lap down in 22nd and Austin Dillon finishing many laps down in 32nd.
The spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway returns to concrete, and the NASCAR Cup Series heads back east to the hills of Tennessee and Thunder Valley for the Food City 500 next Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on Fox.
