With Martin Truex Jr. retiring at the end of 2024 and Denny Hamlin entering the final years of his NASCAR Cup Series career at Joe Gibbs Racing, Christopher Bell — with nine wins and two Championship 4 appearances in his first four Cup seasons with JGR — looked poised to lead the team into the future.
The 2025 season started just that way, with three consecutive wins for Bell in February and March, but JGR now has a new star on its roster in the form of Chase Briscoe.
Briscoe and the No. 19 team have come alive in the summer, with two wins (including a Southern 500) and six top-two finishes in their last 12 starts. Bell, meanwhile, hasn’t won in the 24 races since and has only led 113 laps since his last win. Frustrations also boiled over between Bell and the No. 20 team on the cooldown lap at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway after a seventh-place finish last Sunday (Sept. 7), while JGR teammates Hamlin and Briscoe scored a 1-2 finish.
Of course, Bell still leads Briscoe in Cup wins this season (three to two) and Cup wins overall (12 to four). But two drivers have led the way for JGR since the summer began, and Bell isn’t one of them.
Has Briscoe — who is thriving in his first-ever year with an elite Cup team — overtaken Bell in the JGR hierarchy this season? Or does Bell, with his early wins and past resume, still have the edge? – Stephen Stumpf
The Sky’s the Limit for Briscoe & He’s Only Getting Hotter
First off, a necessary disclaimer. This is not an indictment of Bell as a driver, nor his No. 20 team. There’s still a great chance for Bell to be in the Championship 4 come Phoenix.
However, there are two teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing that over the last few months have taken huge chunks of his momentum, and that’s Hamlin and Briscoe.
There are a few huge factors that make me think that, at least for this season, Briscoe has a bigger spotlight on him at JGR and better odds of winning a title than Bell. Most of it has to do with how red-hot Briscoe has become.
In a series where everyone says it’s hard to pass and that qualifying and field position matter more and more each week, nobody’s been better than Briscoe and crew chief James Small, as the duo have six poles and an average starting position of 9.8 this season. Bell’s average starting spot is 13.6.
Those have translated into great runs, especially in the latter half of the regular season. Since winning at Pocono Raceway in June, Briscoe has four runner-up finishes and a win in the Southern 500. Bell has four runner-up finishes since March, when he won three races in a row, but hasn’t added to his win total since taking the checkered flag at Phoenix Raceway.
Bell is, without a doubt, consistent. He’s third in the series in average finish at 12.9 behind only Briscoe (12.8) and Chase Elliott (11.8). But in an era and system where winning can trump consistency, Bell has paid the price. After wins in the playoffs that helped catapult him to the Championship 4 the previous two years, Bell went without a points-paying win over the final 18 races of 2024 following a win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
But Bell was cut a break for not getting into victory lane last season, at least somewhat, because he wasn’t alone. Toyota as an OEM won just one race in the final half of the 2024 season. This year, Bell’s gone cold at the same time that most of his fellow Toyota drivers have gotten hot.
Hamlin, Briscoe and Bubba Wallace have all found victory lane since Bell’s last win in the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Tyler Reddick, who struggled for consistent results most of the season, somehow finds himself ahead of Bell in the playoff standings entering Bristol. Heck, even Legacy Motor Club is having one of their best runs as a team, with four combined top 10s in their last six entries.
Then there’s Bell, who hasn’t had a top five on an oval since Kansas Speedway back in May, with frustration mounting that he’s good but not great when it matters most. That frustration is the product of high expectations. Expectations that Briscoe didn’t have when he stepped into the No. 19 that had a few disappointing seasons.
It’s not fair to Bell that he falls in the pecking order for being consistent, but Joey Logano proved last season that what you do during the regular season doesn’t matter when you have a team that’s red-hot come playoff time. That team right now in JGR is Briscoe’s No. 19. Just as I’m sure he did throughout his coaching career, Joe Gibbs is going to need to put the ball in the hot hands of Hamlin and Briscoe if he wants to capture another title. – James Krause
Bell Has the Most Experience & the Better Pedigree
While Briscoe is arguably having a breakout year in his debut season with Joe Gibbs Racing, Bell’s past accomplishments speak for themselves compared to what Briscoe has done so far this season in the Cup Series.
Going off career statistics between the two teammates, Briscoe has only managed four wins at the highest level of NASCAR, two of them coming this season in year one with JGR. His teammate Bell, on the other hand, has won 12 races at JGR since 2021.
Bell’s performance in 2025 started off about as well as it could’ve, winning three races in a row. In the opening 10 races of 2025, Briscoe struggled to find results some weekends, finishing in the top ten four times, while Bell went on to score six top-10 results, three of them courtesy of his three wins.
Chemistry was no question one of the obstacles Briscoe had to overcome with crew chief James Small early on, whereas Bell and his crew chief Adam Stevens have been paired together since Bell’s arrival at JGR in 2021.
Briscoe is also at a disadvantage in terms of total playoff experience compared to Bell. Between the two drivers, Briscoe has only qualified for the postseason two other times before 2025, while Bell has appeared in the playoffs in five of his six seasons as a full-time Cup Series driver.
Bell also holds the distinction of having more experience in later rounds of the playoffs when the pressure is at the peak, with three appearances in the Round of 8, twice reaching the Championship 4. The only time Briscoe has had a chance at the Championship 4 came in the debut season of the Next Gen car in 2022, where he finished ninth in the final standings, coming up just short of competing for the Cup Series title.
The 2024 playoffs truly were Bell’s real breakout, as he set the best average finish among the 16 playoff drivers with an average finish of 7.1. On the flip side, Briscoe’s average finish in the opening round of the playoffs was 17th, ultimately leading to his elimination in the Round of 16 after his dramatic win in last year’s Southern 500 helped lock him into the playoffs in 2024.
Briscoe’s having a breakout 2025, but with more experience, more playoff experience and more wins in the Cup Series, Bell is still ahead of Briscoe in the hierarchy of Joe Gibbs Racing. With his experience driving competitive cars at the front of the field for the majority of his career, Bell knows exactly what it takes to contend for race wins and championships on a yearly basis, something Briscoe hasn’t had yet as a full-time Cup driver.
Experience goes a long way in NASCAR, especially the Cup Series, and no one is better positioned than Bell with a veteran champion crew chief and a solid team behind him. – Christopher Hansen
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.
