“Kyle Busch had the most hunger”: Christopher Bell makes a crystal clear case of his former teammate’s ‘really bad’ desire

Christopher Bell made it two back-to-back victories in the NASCAR Cup Series after winning the EchoPark Texas Grand Prix at COTA on Sunday, March 2. His victory came after a long battle for the lead with his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch in the final stage. In a recent conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the latest episode of his podcast, Bell explained just how hungry Busch was to break his winless streak of 638 days.

Bell overtook Busch with five laps to go in the race and held on to the lead to the checkered flag. However, he claimed Busch was the hardest to get around out of all the drivers he overtook. Dale Earnhardt Jr. asked if he thought about passing the #8 car within a certain time frame since Bell had a tire advantage.

Christopher Bell acknowledged that he wasn’t thinking about his car’s performance getting worse over time. However, he did notice early in the final stage that Busch started pulling away from him after they had raced closely for a while. But once the pit stops happened, and Busch pitted a few laps earlier than Bell, the JGR driver felt he had the advantage in speed and tire life.

Even with this advantage, Bell did not want to rush his move. He wanted to be respectful and avoid being too aggressive when trying to pass his former teammate. At one point, Bell had to back out of a move in Turn 1 to avoid crashing into the #8 car. He recognized that Busch was racing with hunger, trying to end his long winless streak.

"He was pushing his entry so hard, you know. You saw me have to bail out getting into (turn) one once because I was going to clean him out if I attempted to get it in there. So yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I didn't rough him up. He probably had the most hunger out of all of us, with him being Kyle Bush, 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 shared (1:44:05 onwards).

The victory at COTA was Bell's third race win on a road course.

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Kyle Busch recalls last year's COTA battle with Christopher Bell

This wasn't the first time Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch have had a duel at the Circuit of the Americas. They also fought for positions in 2024, but things didn't turn out well for the Richard Childress Racing driver as he got turned around after getting hit by Bell.

Busch was understandably unhappy and was later seen confronting his former JGR teammate after the race. Recalling the battle from last year, Busch recently sent a lighthearted message to Christopher Bell calling himself a butthead in the caption of a video clip he shared on X. He also congratulated the #20 driver for his win, saying:

"Last year the #20 was the butthead. This year it was me. GG @CBellRacing."

Busch also called himself a butthead in his post-race interview with Kaitlyn Vincie of FOX Sports after Sunday's race.