HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — His four wins in 2025 were a career high, as was his average finish of 11.2, making Christopher Bell outrageously dependable, just like his primary sponsor for the Daytona 500 — Interstate Batteries.
But the NASCAR Cup Series driver says he and his No. 20 Interstate Batteries team “still left a little on the table.”
That table gets reset in 2026, with the first of 36 courses being served in the season-opening Daytona 500 Feb. 15 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
“It’s about performing to what we’re capable of,” said Bell, who has finished among the top-five in the championship standings in each of the past four years. “We had a great finish to last season, so it just makes us optimistic that our ceiling is high and we can perform as good, or better, than any of our competitors.”
In the last nine races of 2025, Bell never finished worse than 11th. A victory Sept. 13 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway punctuated the run, as did three straight third-place drives from the end of September to mid-October.
Yet it still wasn’t good enough for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver to advance to the Championship 4 – the since relegated winner-take-all championship format that had a 12-year run before being exorcised ahead of this season in favor of a 10-race title chase comprising the top-16 drivers.
The new Chase format rewards front-running consistency – the same front-running consistency Bell and the No. 20 team have exhibited since their sophomore season in 2021 when they banked the first of their 13 wins together.
“It’s a good time to be part of the 20 group, and hopefully the format changes are going to fall into our strengths, and hopefully we’re able to capitalize on that,” Bell said.
That Bell sees room for improvement even after a career year speaks to the tenacity be brings to Daytona from behind the wheel of his green-and-black Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry XSE.
“If you focus on the highs, then you never improve your lows,” Bell said. “You’ve got to work on your weaknesses and make the season turn to where you don’t have any weaknesses. That’s the key to greatness.
“You go to every race track and you feel like you’ve got a shot to win. We’re pretty close to that right now, so I definitely like where we’re at.”
In addition to being a perennial title favorite, the 31-year-old racer from Norman, Oklahoma, is a Daytona 500 favorite. In three of his last six NASCAR Cup Series races at Daytona, Bell has finished third, a run that includes the 2023 and 2024 Daytona 500s, where Bell collectively led 42 of the 412 laps available (10.2 percent).
“I’ve figured out the trick to Daytona. It’s missing the wrecks,” said Bell with a grin.
The tone for Sunday’s 200-lap crescendo starts with a driver’s lap against the clock on Wednesday.
“If you qualify well and you’re able to sit on that front row, then you’re basically in car-protection mode the rest of the time,” Bell said. “You certainly don’t want to go out there and crash in the Duel and give up your front-row starting position. But then on the flip side, if you qualify bad, it puts a lot of emphasis on the Duel and trying to improve your starting position. And you have an opportunity to score points in the Duel too, which is super important. So, it really depends on how that qualifying session goes, and then you’re really making up your strategy from there.”
That strategy ultimately delivers Bell and the No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota to the winner’s circle. But if victory proves elusive, then a strong finish to begin the season can soothe the sting of watching someone else take the checkered flag.
“You’re really going to be focused on getting a good finish at Daytona,” Bell said. “Before, with the win-and-you’re-in (championship) format, you could really just kind of bank on winning a race later on. And then if you had some bad races after the win, it was completely fine. It didn’t matter at all. That’s all gone. The weights of all the races are more equal now.”
Equal in points, but not in stature. The Daytona 500 remains NASCAR’s Super Bowl.
“When you get to Daytona, everybody’s fresh and excited and ready to go. It’s a clean slate for everyone,” Bell said. “There’s no better place to start off than Daytona.”