“He is a superstar”: NASCAR insider predicts ‘big breakout year’ for Joe Gibbs Racing’s ace Christopher Bell 

NASCAR driver Christopher Bell won the 2025 EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, making back-to-back wins in the Cup Series. Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi were featured on the latest episode of the Teardown NASCAR podcast and spoke about 2025 being a possible breakout year for Bell.

Bell won the 2025 Ambetter Health 400 and won the very next NASCAR race at the Circuit of the Americas. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver is currently 4th in the Cup standing after a fantastic start to the season. Bianchi brought up the topic of Bell and discussed the heights that the JGR driver can reach during the 2025 season.

“I just want to say, like, I feel like, and I've said this so many times, like I'm waiting for this breakout big year. And I just think that this is it. Like, we're seeing it,” said Bianchi. (53:40 onwards)

“We're seeing, like, he is a superstar. And I think we're losing sight of that a little bit. He's kind of quiet on assuming, but he's getting a bigger voice in the sport. This is a driver who is not like that the potential. And we hear that a lot. Oh, he could raise, he's got the potential to do this. Like, he's legit. Like, this is him now,” he added.

Christopher Bell made his NASCAR Cup Series debut in 2020 and made the move to Joe Gibbs Racing the next year. In the last three seasons with JGR, the 30-year-old finished inside the Top 5 in the championship standings. Given the start that Bell has made to the 2025 season, Bianchi and Gluck expect a breakout year for the JGR driver.

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Christopher Bell on ‘redeeming himself’ at the Circuit of the Americas

Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch came together during the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series race at the Circuit of the Americas, which led to the #8 car going around. The two drivers confronted each other after the race. At the 2025 race, Bell and Busch faced off in the final laps of the race. The JGR kept it clean and passed the #8 driver to win the race.

Speaking with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio after the race, Bell said:

“Yeah. I mean, I just had to redeem myself from last year. Clearly, I, you know, I don’t, I try to race respectful. I think everyone in the garage by this point knows that I’m going to do it the right way. And last year was an oopsie on my part, and glad I didn’t do have the same thing.”

Christopher Bell defended against William Byron in the closing laps of the race to take the chequered flag in P1 at the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix.