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Joe Gibbs Racing's Christopher Bell recently reflected on Ryan Blaney's 2025 Cup Series season, as he highlighted Team Penske rival’s unfortunate ordeal. The #20 Toyota driver will start in pole position at Sunday's Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway after a brilliant qualifying session on Saturday.
Ryan Blaney started the 2025 Cup Series season strongly with Top 10 results in the first two races. However, the luck took a turn for the worse with the Team Penske driver finishing P19 at COTA, and retiring in the last three races, two of which were because of power unit failures.
Speaking to the media after the qualifying session at Martinsville Speedway, Christopher Bell detailed how he's been lucky to convert his pace into wins, but highlighted that there are five teams with the pace to challenge for the pole positions and wins. Speaking about the same, he gave Ryan Blaney's example, as he said,
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“It just goes to show that whenever it's, whenever we do it right, we, we're certainly as capable as, as anyone. And I think that, you know, there's probably, I don't know, upwards of five teams that can say the same thing.”
“You know, you look at Ryan Blaney, he's been incredible the last, well, really every race this year he's been incredible and really has nothing to show for it. So at some point they're going to start getting a little bit of luck fall their way and they're going to be winning races, too,” he added.
The three Team Penske drivers are yet to register a win in the 2025 Cup Series championship but have led the most laps of anyone on the grid: Joey Logano (247 laps led), Austin Cindric (159), and Ryan Blaney (148). This fact concretises the team's position as a contender for race wins, with the luck yet to fall its way.
“The best qualifying session I've ever felt” - Christopher Bell on taking the pole position at Martinsville Speedway
Christopher Bell in the #20 JGR Toyota managed three consecutive wins in the first five races of the season. However, qualifying was a weak suit for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who had to make his way up the field and lost on the stage points while doing so. This is the reason why William Byron is leading the championship with just one win to his name.
Nonetheless, Bell put the qualifying woes behind him at Martinsville by taking the pole position. Speaking about how the car felt in qualifying, the JGR driver said via Motorsport,
“That was definitely the best qualifying session I've ever felt out of my car here at Martinsville. It was just easy. I've been really good at qualifying in the 20s, (but) I went out there and the car had so much grip. It just cut a really good lap. Really proud of everyone on this #20 team.”
Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman rounded out the top three qualifiers at Martinsville with Kyle Larson starting P4. Christopher Bell's JGR teammate Denny Hamlin will start P5 on Sunday.
