The season of frustration for Christopher Bell, the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, continued in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway. Bell, who has had a lot of speed in 2026 but not a lot of luck, saw his bid for the win in Sunday’s race end in heartbreaking fashion.
Bell, who was leading the race, was minding his own business and trying to fend off Denny Hamlin, his teammate, for the top spot in the race, when on Lap 68, Todd Gilliland, a lapped car, lost control of his car in Turn 4.
As Bell attempted to squeeze by the spinning Gilliland, Bell’s No. 20 Toyota got clipped in the right rear, which sent him spinning into the outside wall.
Terrible luck for Christopher Bell in Texas as Todd Gilliland goes around right in front of him. https://t.co/YOhS9lqYWK pic.twitter.com/p4Luizl5w7
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 3, 2026
Here’s an additional set of replays of the incident:
Christopher Bell goes to the lead in Texas and then … pic.twitter.com/qwzE2DPppA
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) May 3, 2026
In an instant, Bell went from being in the race lead and hoping for his first victory of the season to being behind the wall, wondering once again what could have been.
This latest hiccup will mark the fourth consecutive finish outside of the top-15 for the 31-year-old driver, who came into the season as one of the expected drivers to contend for the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Bell said while it’s a tough end to what could have been a great day, that he still has a lot to be thankful for.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a bummer, but I’m still thankful. I’m thankful I get to drive really fast race cars. Thankful I got to lead laps today. Thankful I get to carry the Rheem colors, drive for Joe Gibbs Racing,” Bell said in a post-care center interview on FS1. “Yeah, I was a couple of feet away from having a great day. But yeah, it’s going to turn around at some point.”
Bell crashed out of the season-opening Daytona 500 and started his campaign with a 35th-place finish. He was 21st a week later at EchoPark Speedway. After three consecutive top-four finishes at Circuit of the Americas, Phoenix Raceway, and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Bell suffered a 19th-place run at Darlington Raceway.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver would get a reprieve for a week as he finished seventh at Martinsville Speedway before he entered this latest four-race skid of bad runs.
And again, it’s not that Bell has been bad. He’s actually led 22 laps or more in each of the last three races, but has had nothing to show for it. Bell led 47 laps at Kansas Speedway, but crashed on the final restart of the race and finished 20th. Last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, Bell finished 17th after leading 31 laps. And he led 22 of the opening 68 laps at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, before his day was dashed.
