"I wanted to make sure I didn't rough him up": Christopher Bell comes clean on thrilling Kyle Busch battle at COTA

Christopher Bell recently opened up on his battle with Kyle Busch and his strategy towards the end of the race at COTA. Bell, who emerged victorious after a late lap pass on his former teammate, registered back-to-back trips to the victory lane after his win at Atlanta in the second race of the season.

Recently, he appeared on the Dale Jr. Download podcast where he spoke about the state of his #20 Toyota Camry at the point of him battling with Busch. Bell said he never worried about his car detoriating and that at the start of the third stage, he was a little bit behind Busch while trying to pressure him.

However, things changed for Bell after the pit cycle and Busch's decision to pit a couple of laps earlier.

"I felt like I had the upper hand in terms of car speed and tire life and I was just trying to be respectful of making my move on him and I didn't want to get overzealous and push the issue too quickly I wanted to make sure I didn't rough him up. [1:43:00]

Christopher Bell further said:

"He was racing, he probably had the most hunger out of all of us being Kyle Busch, the winless streak he's on. I know he wanted to win really bad and it was not going to be an easy pass by any stretch of the imagination," Christopher Bell explained. [1:44:30]

Christopher Bell speaks about the importance of remaining patient to make a pass on a track like COTA

Speaking about his race at COTA, Christopher Bell explained why remaining patient was the key for him. Bell said that the same number of laps between two tracks like COTA and Bristol can have very different implications.

"COTA, it's shorter now but it's still super, super long laps. I remember Adam did a great job on the radio of saying, 'Hey man, there's plenty of time. There's still 8 laps left, 6 laps left,' and I'm like, '8 laps or 6 laps at Bristol? You don't have much time. But at COTA, you've got an eternity.' And honestly I felt a little bit comfortable being the chaser than getting out front and having to defend," Bell said. [1:43:25]

As for his approach to pass Kyle Busch, Bell recalled having a couple of runs down the frontstraightaway where he felt he could potentially outbreak him. And while he had done so to other drivers in the race in turn 1, Busch was the strongest car that he had gone against as far as outbreaking him.

Bell recalled how Busch was pushing his entry so hard, at one point he had to bail out getting into the corner otherwise he'd have wrecked his former teammate.