“We need to clean it up”: Christopher Bell sends blunt message to his boss amid performance issues

Christopher Bell has delivered a blunt message to his boss Joe Gibbs and JGR after missing out on multiple potential wins this past season. The #20 Toyota driver made it to the Round of 8; but failed to punch his Championship 4 ticket, despite his fourth consecutive entry on the road to the NASCAR Cup Series title.

JGR had strong performances in the beginning of the 2024 season. After acing two of three preseason races, courtesy of Denny Hamlin and Bell, the Huntersville, North Carolina-based outfit proved it was primed for a dominant season. Moreover, from the first 18 races until at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Hamlin and Bell collectively clinched six wins, three apiece.

However, after the #20 Toyota driver's Nashville win, neither driver from the JGR stable parked their ride in the victory lane. The team failed to secure a solitary triumph in the playoffs, wrapping the season with a five-month winless draught.

Christopher Bell voiced his concern about the same. The nine-time Cup Series race winner opened up on the missed opportunities, sending a clean-up message to Mr. Gibbs and his outfit.

“That’s sad,” Bell said about the 5-month gap (via NASCAR). “Looking back at Nashville, Nashville was a potential win. Chicago was a potential win. Vegas was a potential win. Like there’s so many races that happened in between our last win and the end of the year that we let slip away. We need to clean it up and if we keep bringing the same car potential back to the racetrack, I think that, hopefully, I will be able to do my job and close the races out.”

Bell finished 36th in Nashville, 37th at Chicago Street Course, and emerged as the runner-up at the Vegas playoff race. However, his title fight ended after his final lap maneuver at Martinsville Speedway backfired.

---

What cost Christopher Bell a potential first NASCAR Cup Series title

Christopher Bell ended the 2024 season with three wins, 15 top-5s, and 23 top-10s -his best season since his debut at the 2020 Daytona 500. Even though he failed to take the checkered flag after Nashville, he bagged five top-5s in the playoffs, before calamity struck in Martinsville.

Bell rode the wall on the penultimate lap, finishing 18th in the XFINITY 500 and provisionally locking his Championship 4 spot. However, the move was deemed illegal by NASCAR after Ross Chastain did the same two years back, at the same track.

As a result, NASCAR disqualified the sole JGR driver who made it to the Championship Race, reinstating Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron.

“It’s a bummer, but in the grand scheme of things, there’s a lot of things that we did poorly today that we could have done better within our control. So yeah, I don’t know. We accomplished a lot of things this year. The championship won’t be one of them, but we’ll try again next year," Bell said via NASCAR.

Nonetheless, Christopher Bell concluded the season as the best-performing JGR driver, placing his #20 Toyota Camry in 5th place. Meanwhile, Hamlin settled in eighth, Martin Truex Jr. in 10th, and Ty Gibbs in 15th.