LOUDON, N.H. — Another driver has won in the 2022 NASCAR season, adding to the uncertainty as the cutoff date for the playoffs gets closer.
Christopher Bell led the last 40 laps of the Ambetter 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to win his second NASCAR Cup Series race and become the 14th different winner this season.
After a tough battle with Chase Elliott for second place during the last green flag run of the race, Bell took the lead from Kurt Busch on Lap 260. After taking the lead, Bell pulled away from the rest of the pack and never gave it up.
Bell told the NBC crew after he won, “That was a lot of fun, and I’m so glad to be here.” “It’s hard to win a cup race. It seems like we’ve been so close.” Martin Truex Jr. lost out on the win to Bell because he had to make a pit stop during the last caution, which put him in the middle of the pack.
Truex got his first pole position since 2018 and his first one with Joe Gibbs Racing. He quickly became the favourite for the rest of the day as he won Stages 1 and 2.
He stayed near the top until Lap 206, when a caution caused Truex and four other drivers to only change two tyres while the rest of the drivers on the lead lap changed four tyres. The imbalance quickly moved Truex back, and he has yet to win a race in 2022.
Truex came in fourth place. Elliott came in second, Bubba Wallace came in third, and Kevin Harvick finished in fifth place to round out the top five. Several accidents on the track made for a busy day at The Magic Mile. On Lap 5, Ty Dillon hit Justin Haley, which caused Haley to crash into Alex Bowman, BJ McLeod, and Alex Bilicki. All but Haley’s races were over because of the crash.
Corey LaJoie was out of the race after a crash on Lap 89. He spun and hit a number of cars, which put him out of the race. Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Chase Briscoe all spun out, which caused cautions at different times of the day.
The race was already stopped on Lap 164, which may have been the most important event. Kyle Busch spun out of the race, which slowed everyone down. Austin Dillon bumped Brad Keselowski to show that he didn’t like how he was racing him.
Keselowski hit Dillon’s car as hard as he could against the inside of the track. After what happened, Keselowski’s team, RFK Racing, made a joke about Dillon’s reality show, Life in the Fast Lane.
Well, he got some more content for that new TV show I guess
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) July 17, 2022
Dillon’s problems kept going all day, and on Lap 206, he got turned around on pit road. He came in 23rd. Keselowski came in 7th place. Bell is now 14th in the NASCAR playoff standings after his win. With six races left, only two of the 16 drivers in the playoffs have not won a race this year.
Blaney, who has the third most points so far this year, is 105 points ahead. Meanwhile, Truex is 68 points ahead of Kevin Harvick, who is the first driver outside of the playoff grid.
So far this year, 14 people have won a race. Since 2011, this is the most variety NASCAR has had at this point in the season in terms of who has won. Since 2014, when NASCAR started its playoff system, there has only been one year with 14 winners before the playoffs began. That year was 2017.
If at least two more drivers win races before the 26th race of the season at Daytona in August, it could be the first time that every driver in the playoffs has won a race, and someone who has won a race could miss out on the playoffs.
The next NASCAR race is the M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at Pocono International Raceway on Sunday, July 24.
