HAMPTON, Ga. — Christopher Bell triumphed in the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Feb. 23, 2025, leading only the final lap in an overtime finish to earn his 10th NASCAR Cup Series victory. The 30-year-old Oklahoman outpaced Carson Hocevar and Kyle Larson in a three-wide run to the checkered flag, with a caution on Lap 266 locking in his win. The victory was Bell’s first on a drafting track and Joe Gibbs Racing’s first since June 2024, highlighting a breakthrough for the No. 20 Toyota team.
The race’s conclusion mirrored the previous year’s three-wide finish at Atlanta, with Bell seizing the lead after a critical restart. “I’ll tell you what, that right there is what you dream of,” he told FOX, beaming. “To be able to re-start on the first or second row on a re-start at a speedway you never know how those things are going to play out.” Admitting past difficulties, he said, “I don’t know, but this style of racing has always been a little bit of a struggle for me,” before declaring, “I’ll be the first to tell you, ‘I love superspeedways.’” Bell credited crew chief Adam Stevens, noting, “Throughout the beginning of the day, obviously today we were just stuck way in the back. But Adam and these boys just did an incredible job of getting this thing fixed up so I could just hold my foot down and that last half of the race we ran our best.”
The 266-lap race, extended by overtime, featured 50 lead changes among 15 drivers and 11 cautions for 63 laps, ending under yellow after Berry, Haley, and Preece crashed on the backstretch. Larson’s third-place finish—his best in 48 speedway races—came despite sparking overtime with a Cindric incident. Hocevar’s second-place result was a career peak, though he faced post-race talks from Chastain and Blaney, who said, “I just told him you got to calm down. … He should know better than to hit me in that spot. … You got a lot of talent, but you got to be a little bit easier in this certain moment. Be smarter.” Hocevar apologized for a Larson bump, saying, “I didn’t realize we weren’t racing back to the line.”
Fords led early, with Logano pacing 83 laps and Blaney on pole among 10 top-11 qualifiers. Their dominance held until Lap 140, after which strategy and car setups reshuffled the field. Bell’s win came at 118.384 mph over 3 hours, 27 minutes, and 37 seconds. Stenhouse Jr., Hamlin, Busch, Chastain, Wallace, and Nemechek followed, with Logano in 12th. Blaney leads Byron by 12 points. The series moves to Circuit of The Americas on March 2.
