Christopher Bell won Sunday’s (March 2) EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, earning his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series win.
Bell passed Kyle Busch with five laps to go and held off William Byron and Tyler Reddick to win the 11th race of his Cup Series career.
“That was almost a deja vu of last year,” Bell told FOX Sports. “Whenever Kyle was leading, I was trying to be cautious. I was trying to pass him clean. He was doing such good job of running his race. He bobbled and allowed me to get out front. Those were about the sloppiest five or six laps I’ve ever run.”
The results were the opposite of a year ago, where Byron held off a hard-charging Bell to score the win.
“it was really close,” Byron told FOX Sports. “I felt like the battle between him and Kyle was sitting there waiting for one of them to bobble or slide their tires. Bell got by him and I felt like once he got clear, his car was super loose. It gave me a couple shots at him, I just couldn’t get beside him.
“I didn’t want to blatantly move him.”
Byron, Reddick, Chase Elliott, Busch, Shane van Gisbergen, Chris Buescher, Noah Gragson, Alex Bowman and Todd Gilliland rounded out the top 10.
Bubba Wallace won stage one, while Ryan Preece won stage two.
Daniel Suarez and Connor Zilisch finished 36th and 37th after Suarez spun on lap 50, collecting Zilisch in a hard crash. It was a disappointing end to Zilisch’s Cup Series debut, in which the 18-year-old drove into the top 15 after cutting a tire on lap 1.
The No. 99 goes around and collects @ConnorZilisch! pic.twitter.com/xwH575jTPe
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) March 2, 2025
EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix Results
The NASCAR Cup Series will travel to Avondale, Ariz., on March 9 for the Shriners Children’s 500 at the one-mile Phoenix Raceway. The fourth race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season will go green shortly after 3:30 p.m. ET, with coverage on FS1, MRN 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.