With nearly a week to process last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, Christopher Bell didn’t mince words about the outcome.
Bell, who initially secured a spot in the Championship 4 after finishing 18th, one lap down following a last-lap wall-ride pass over fellow Toyota driver Bubba Wallace, was penalized after NASCAR officials nabbed Bell for a safety violation, dropping him to 22nd.
Wallace was slowing in the closing laps due to an apparent tire going flat.
That allowed Chevrolet driver William Byron to advance. However, in the closing laps with Byron’s No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports machine struggling on older tires, fellow Chevrolet drivers Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain formed a wall behind Byron.
Dillon, Chastain and Wallace and their teams were all penalized by NASCAR on Tuesday for race manipulation.
While NASCAR dropped the hammer, Byron came away unscathed with a shot at a championship this weekend at Phoenix Raceway along with Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick.
To put it simple, Bell stated, “I feel cheated.”
“I feel cheated out of a chance to compete for a championship,” Bell continued. “It all stems from what happened earlier – 15, 20 to go, whenever the race got fixed, and manipulated by Chevrolet, that forced our hands to do what we did and ultimately, it forced me into a mistake on the last lap to get into the wall.
“I feel like I should have never been in that situation had the race been ran fairly, the 24 (Bryon) would have lost enough spots to get me into the final race.”
As the laps dwindled, Bell eventually saw Byron’s slower pace ahead.
“…it was probably 10 to go when I realized what was going on, and that the 24 was indeed done bleeding positions, so I thought at that point that my race was over,” Bell said.
While a slowing Wallace was lurking ahead, Bell stated he wasn’t aware until the final lap that passing Wallace would be for position.
“I knew that I had to pass him, and I got by him into turn three and unfortunately, I slid into (the) wall,” Bell said.
As the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has had time to reflect on a tumultuous race, he admitted, “this has been one of the hardest things that I have had to go through as a race car driver.”
“I believe cheated is the right word,” Bell continued.
“We go through sessions at the beginning of the year to make sure that we don’t do this, and that unfortunately, is what happened, and I was on the losing side of it.”