Christopher Bell Opens Up on the NASCAR Change He Personally Helped Push For

Christopher Bell did not sit and complain about what happened at Martinsville in 2024. He sat in a room with NASCAR officials and helped tear the whole system apart. At Martinsville, a controversial wall-ride penalty on the final lap ended his championship run. Bell called it outright manipulation. He felt cheated out of a shot at the title and made no effort to hide it.

What came next, though, was not untapped frustration. Bell joined the driver committee that pushed NASCAR to scrap the elimination-style playoffs and go back to a 10-race Chase points format for 2026. The format is now running. And Bell is very happy with what he sees.

“I think I’m super, super excited about this Chase format,” Christopher Bell told PRN Live. “Whoever the champion is gonna be is gonna be a very, very deserving champion.”

Coming from him, that word deserving is not throwaway. Bell also pointed out something specific about how wins are rewarded now.

“If you’re able to go on a tear and win a lot of races, you can make up a ton of points,” he said. “I don’t think you’re gonna be out of it.”

“For the first time since I’ve been in the sport, all of us are gonna be able to celebrate the champion for sure.”

He even called the old setup out directly on SiriusXM beforehand. No more two goofy point systems, he said. No more regular points running separately from playoff points. One system, a clean one.

Christopher Bell did not name Joey Logano in that quote. He did not need to. But the recent history of what used to be before the Chase history speaks otherwise.

Logano won the 2024 title after entering the playoffs ranked 15th out of 16 drivers. His only win that year came on a fuel gamble in five overtimes at Nashville. He was actually eliminated in the Round of 12, then got reinstated because Alex Bowman’s car failed a post-race inspection. Two playoffs rounds later with a win at Atlanta and Las Vegas, he was holding the championship trophy in Phoenix.

Kyle Larson that season had six wins, 15 top-5 finishes, and averaged a 13.0 finish. Logano had four wins, seven top-5s, and averaged 17.1. That is the worst average finish ever recorded by a NASCAR champion.

A section of NASCAR fans even argued that Logano was the worst champion, with demands of scrapping the elimination style playoffs. NASCAR heard them, brought in Christopher Bell and others to figure out a fix, and completely rebuilt the format before 2026.

The tricky part of this format turnaround is that, Bell himself isn’t able to deliver the performance he was hoping for.

Currently, he’s 10th in the points standings and has led 422 laps. But so far no trips to victory lane. He finished second at Chicagoland. Second again at the Brickyard 400, behind part-time driver Corey Heim. A total of six runner-up finishes so far this season, and still in search of the win.

A broken left wrist from a crash at Michigan in June did not help. Three straight finishes of 26th or worse followed. He came back at Sonoma with a cast on his arm and finished fifth.

He is 277 points behind Denny Hamlin. The format Christopher Bell helped shape has no artificial reset waiting for him. So, he knows exactly what that means. He helped write the rules. Now he has to win using them.

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