Ross Chastain comes 100% clean on his involvement in Christopher Bell’s wreck

Ross Chastain got into an incident with pole-sitter Christopher Bell on the last lap of Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway. Later, during an interview, he admitted that he had cornered the JGR driver.

Wheeling the No. 9 Chevrolet SS for JR Motorsports, Chastain finished the race fourth, while Bell was relegated to a disappointing P25 finish. The Chevy star had a run-in with fellow Cup driver Chase Elliott as well, but the Hendrick Motorsports ace managed to salvage a top-three finish.

Notably, each JR Motorsports driver, including Justin Allgaier, Carson Kvapil, Connor Zilisch, Sammy Smith, and, of course, Chastain, finished inside the top 10. JGR’s Brandon Jones won the event, marking his maiden win of 2025.

Speaking of his last-lap encounter with Bell, Chastain said (as quoted by PRN on X),

“I haven't seen the replay but I don't think I left him enough room. I hurt his day and crinkled our fender, too. Yeah, pinched him for sure. I need to leave him a little more room."

Chastain, Bell, and Elliott are all set for another face-off on Sunday, April 6, as Darlington Raceway hosts the eighth Cup Series race of the season, named Goodyear 400, on that day. Among the three, Christopher Bell is the only driver who is in the playoff rumble.

Bell won the Xfinity Series’ fall race at the track “Too Tough to Tame” last year, also from the pole. This means he was going for his second consecutive Darlington sweep, and that too from the pole. He is currently in his fifth year driving for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Ross Chastain is also in his fifth year driving the No. 1 Chevy Camaro for Trackhouse Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. The last time he won a race was at Kansas Speedway in September 2024. Chastain also has to his name five wins in the Truck Series and two wins in the Xfinity Series.

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“We just haven’t kept up”- Ross Chastain drops a verdict on his Miami outing

So far, two of Ross Chastain’s best finishes of 2025 came at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (P5) on March 16 and at Martinsville Speedway (P6) a couple weeks later. That being said, Homestead-Miami is what concerned the Cup Series regular.

This year, Chastain finished 31st at the 1.5-mile oval-shaped speedway, as opposed to his runner-up performance at the track back in 2022. Reflecting on the same during an interview (via GP Fans), the Alva, Florida native said,

“That’s two years in a row that Homestead stands out as our terrible performance, and I can’t make speed, and I’m hitting the wall. We just haven’t kept up with the garage, in my opinion. There are cars that we used to outrun easily that now, I look at their bumper. They used to comment to us about being tired of looking at the back of the one car, and now that’s just not the case."

NASCAR will return to Darlington and LVMS later this year, but that one is going to be Chastain’s lone attempt at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He will have to wait another year to assert his dominance there.