Christopher Bell almost took a two-stop strategy to the win on Sunday in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas, taking a near 10 second deficit to a margin of defeat of just 0.692 seconds over William Byron.
On the way to his second-place finish, Bell drew the ire of two former teammates in Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch. Larson was his teammate on multiple occasions in Midgets at Keith Kunz Motorsports and Busch was his teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing.
On Lapp 22, Larson went around from slight contact from Bell, while racing for sixth.
Nearly 20 laps later, Busch went around from contact while racing for fifth.
Busch managed a ninth place finish but confronted Bell after the race, being heard on cameras as saying that Busch has a way cleaner record racing Bell than the other way around. Busch asked if he’s ever wrecked Bell. Bell said ‘no’ and Busch said back, ‘okay, shit’s coming.’
Afterwards, Bell expressed contrition for both incidents.
“I mean, yeah, obviously he’s very upset,” Bell said of Busch. “Which, you know, he ended up turned around. First off, I’m sorry to Larson and the 5 car, I got him early in the race by no intention at all. I didn’t mean to do that. [Busch] is so frustrated by what happened in Turn 1, and I don’t know. They were two-wide going in there. I haven’t obviously seen a replay yet, I had no intentions of turning him. I’m sure we’ll talk it out before the next race.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.