NASCAR focused its review of the finish from Martinsville Speedway on Christopher Bell to determine who would be in the Championship 4 for the Cup Series title.
Bell was penalized for riding the wall on the final lap in the final corners, which eliminated him from the position. The final transfer spot went to William Byron.
In the initial finish, Bell advanced via a tiebreaker on Byron, but it took 27 minutes for NASCAR to review the video and confirm the finish and who advanced.
“When you look at it today, he clearly got up against the fence in [Turns] 3 and 4 and rode the fence all the way off [Turn] 4 there,” NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said. “That’s strictly to protect our drivers and our fans. That one is pretty straightforward.”
The penalty was a safety violation. The wall ride falls under the safety violation in the NASCAR Rule Book, which was made clear in 2022 after Ross Chastain pulled off the video game move to advance in the postseason. Chastain went wide open into Turn 3 and rode the wall to the finish.
Joe Gibbs Racing executives went to the NASCAR hauler about the decision. It was approximately a 15-minute conversation in which they were told an in-race violation is not appealable.
Bell denied riding the wall intentionally. He said he made a mistake getting into Turn 3 and the car slid into the wall. However, Bell acknowledged that he knew he needed the positions and tried to get to the finish line as quickly as possible.
“I made a mistake and I slid into the wall,” Bell said. “Unfortunately, they ruled that as a safety violation. I don’t know what to say. I didn’t advance my position into the wall. I lost time on the racetrack, but it’s not meant to be.
“It’s fine.”
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The only position Bell could have taken was from Toyota teammate Bubba Wallace. Bell was in the process of passing Wallace going into Turn 3 before his car slid into the wall.
“I’m not going to speculate on what Christopher did or what he meant to do,” Sawyer said. “That wouldn’t be fair to try to make that type of decision based off that. We looked at the data and the video, and we’ve been very clear based off our conversations with our industry and based off that move two years ago, that it won’t be tolerated.”
However, NASCAR does have more to review from Sunday. Bell’s move was the immediate issue that NASCAR addressed.
Wallace slowed on the backstretch on the final lap before Bell caught him for the position. He denied that it was to help his manufacturer teammate and said something happened to his car and he was trying not to cause a caution.
Chevrolet also had three drivers behind Byron who did not attempt to pass him. It’s one point per position, and Byron could not afford to lose any as he was only one point ahead of Bell as the race wound down.
The No. 3 in-car radio of Austin Dillon showed their team was aware of Byron’s situation and discussed it with less than 25 laps to go. Dillon was later told if he were to pass Byron, it would move the Hendrick Motorsports driver outside the playoffs.
Dillon wound up behind Byron over the final laps. Ross Chastain, another Chevrolet driver, was to Dillon’s outside. Carson Hocevar ran behind the side-by-side Dillon and Chastain.
“Does the [No.] 1 crew chief know the deal?” one voice on Dillon’s radio asks.
“Yeah, he should,” another voice says.
All of those chains of events will be looked into this week by NASCAR.
“We’ll take all the data, video, we’ll listen to in-car audio and video,” Sawyer said. “We’ll do all that, as we would any event.”