Any questions or concerns about the Toyota teams evaporated in the Phoenix desert Sunday afternoon.
Christopher Bell’s victory in the NASCAR Cup Series race capped off a dominating day for the manufacturer. Bell led 50 laps en route to winning, the first for Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota in 2024. Chevrolet already swept the first three races.
Bell, though, was just one of five Toyota drivers who spent time in the front, along with polesitter Denny Hamlin, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr., and Ty Gibbs — all combining to lead 298 of 312 laps.
“This was a momentous win,” Toyota Racing Development president David Wilson said. “This was the first win with our new Camry body. I was clear to say at the beginning of the year that we have struggled here recently. I didn’t realize this statistic until it was brought to my attention, but the four previous Phoenix races, Toyota’s led a combined 15 laps.
“Today, we led everything but 14 laps. That’s a credit to the Joe Gibbs organization, TRD USA, Calty Design, who helped us with this new Camry body. At the same time, I will say that the secret to longevity in sports — in motorsports — is never get too high when the day goes your way, and never get too low when it doesn’t, because we’re going to be racing again next week. Phoenix will be in our rearview mirror.”
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Four Toyota drivers finished inside the top 10 at Phoenix Raceway, led by Bell’s win. Hamlin and Reddick tied for a race-high 68 laps led.
Hamlin was taken out of contention when he spun on lap 215 while battling for the lead with Reddick. He finished 11th. As for Reddick, he never made it back through the field after pitting under the final caution (for Hamlin) while nine other drivers stayed out, and ultimately finished 10th.
Reddick, however, earned the first stage win for Toyota at Phoenix. Hamlin earned the manufacturer’s first pole during Saturday’s qualifying session.
“It was unprecedented how much TRD USA and Joe Gibbs Racing worked together on that body,” Wilson said. “I may have said, because I say this all the time — you don’t race wind tunnels, you don’t race dynos. You could be the best on paper, but unless you have the talent behind the steering wheel and the team and the pit crews to put an entire race together, the rest is meaningless.
“Certainly, what we’ve seen four races in validates a lot of our optimism, but we have a whole lot of racing to go — more intermediates, more big tracks, and short tracks to truly evaluate where we are.”
Through four races, Cup Series teams have competed at two superspeedway drafting tracks (Daytona and Atlanta), an intermediate (Las Vegas), and a short track (Phoenix), with another short track coming next week when the series heads to Bristol. The final puzzle piece — a road course — is just two weeks away at Circuit of The Americas.