Christopher Bell won Sunday’s (Feb. 23) Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, beating Kyle Larson and Carson Hocevar in overtime after the caution came out on the final lap.
The race was sent into overtime after Austin Cindric and William Byron tangled on the backstretch with four laps to go.
The win is Bell’s first of the 2025 season and the 10th of his Cup Series career.
Hocevar, Larson, Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and John Hunter Nemechek completed the top-10.
“That right there is what you dream of,” Bell told FOX Sports. “You never know how these things are going to turn out. The beginning of the day, we were stuck in the back. Adam [Stevens, crew chief] and these boys back here did an amazing job getting it to where I could just hold my foot down.”
Hocevar was greeted by several drivers after a race in which the second-year driver made several aggressive moves.
“I’ll just leave those to myself,” Hocevar told Fox Sports when asked about the post-race conversations. “First off, apologies to Larson and HMS and Mr. (Rick Hendrick). They help us out a lot, and I didn’t know we weren’t racing back to the line. The last two nights were kinda that way. I hit the No. 20 to get him out of the way and fill the middle. A little bit longer and maybe we win the race.”
Brad Keselowski, Corey LaJoie and Chase Elliott were involved in the first multi-car incident of the day on lap 150. After Elliott hit the wall on the exit of turn four, his No. 9 Chevrolet suffered a broken toe link, forcing Elliott to make contact with LaJoie and Keselowski.
On lap 184, defending Ambetter Health 400 winner Daniel Suarez, along with Cody Ware, JJ Yeley, Cole Custer and Ty Gibbs were involved in a hard crash. Custer hit the inside wall hard enough to bend the rear suspension on his No. 41 Ford.
With 56 laps to go, turn 4 was once again the catalyst for a crash. Chase Briscoe was squeezed on the exit of turn 4, incurring contact with Chris Buescher that sent Buescher into Alex Bowman. On the same lap, Gibbs blew a tire on the exit of turn 2 and spun out.
Ambetter Health 400 Results
The NASCAR Cup Series will travel to Austin, Texas, on March 2 for the third race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season at Circuit of the Americas. The race will go green shortly after 3:30 p.m. ET, with coverage on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.