Christopher Bell’s win in Darlington was proof that Toyota’s regular-season dominance was not fading away anytime soon. Five of the top six drivers in the standings before and after the Cook Out Southern 500 were Toyota drivers, four of them Joe Gibbs Racing stars. With 17 wins in 27 races in 2026, this level of superiority is a reminder of the Japanese manufacturer’s incredible run back in 2019.
That year, the late, great Kyle Busch won his second Cup Series championship, finishing ahead of former champion Martin Truex Jr. Denny Hamlin finished fourth, meaning three of the top four drivers were from Joe Gibbs Racing. Those noticing the similarities would be quick to predict a similar outcome for the organization this year. But Bell is cautiously optimistic.
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“We need to make the most of it now because we know how it goes right now. We’re on top, but we won’t be up there forever. That’s for sure,” the No. 20 driver said after winning in Darlington on Sunday.
He acknowledged that all four JGR drivers, himself, Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, and Ty Gibbs, are in a strong position, just like the 2019 trio was. He also believes that the championship will end up with either one of them or a 23XI Racing driver, most likely Tyler Reddick. All Toyota drivers.
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“We just have a great product right now. And TRD, Toyota has given us that platform, and our teams have hit it,” Bell added in the same interview.
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While the No. 20 JGR Toyota driver has closed his gap to teammate Denny Hamlin from 50 points to just 12, getting to victory lane in Darlington was no easy work. Bell details how his race went and what helped him get the win at the end.
“Honestly, I thought I was out of it after the Stage Two mishap. I won Stage Two, and I’m like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna have an opportunity to win this race.’ And then the pit road mishap,” Bell said. “And I’m like, ‘Back to damage control. Where can we end up finishing? Can we get back into the top ten, top five?’ And then, at the end, having the opportunity to race for it, that’s all you can ask for. And I knew that last restart, if it ended up being the last restart, it was all about who was going to be the first car on four tires.
“And then Kyle [Larson] did a great job holding us off with the older tires for a while. And then ultimately it was just too much. And he got eaten up. But it was all about being that first car on tires.”
JGR is clearly the team with the best odds of claiming the Cup Series crown. Three of their four drivers were race winners in the regular season, while Bell finished runner-up an agonizing seven times. None of them broke a sweat getting into the top 16.
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Team Penske and Hendrick Motorsports come next with three drivers each, but they are spread out across the leaderboard. For Penske, it was Ryan Blaney, seeded No. 2 before Darlington, who was the only consistent Ford driver in the garage, as it took the manufacturer some time to find its footing. For Hendrick’s Chevrolets, though, it was a really difficult and long regular season, plagued by the car’s balance issues.
After Darlington, however, Blaney, who finished fourth in race, dropped to third in the standings. He’s now 16 points behind leader Hamlin. Logano, meanwhile, rose to eighth with a ninth-place finish. Austin Cindric remains in 14th.
For HMS, Kyle Larson, who finished fifth, led for a sizable chunk of the race in Darlington. The reigning champion is seventh in points, while his teammate Chase Elliott, who finished 14th, is ninth. William Byron is currently the lowest-ranked driver in contention, sitting 16th after he DNFed on Sunday.
While both Penske and HMS fall short of JGR in terms of pure race pace, another reason why they fall short is the fact that throughout the season their drivers have barely driven in tandem or close together at the top. JGR has mastered exactly that somehow.
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JGR has finished with at least three drivers in the top four on three separate occasions. In Nashville, Hamlin took the win with Bell coming in second and Chase Briscoe in third. At Chicagoland, that order flipped, with Briscoe winning and Hamlin taking third, with Bell splitting the two.
Most recently, they showcased it in North Wilkesboro, where Joey Logano won to resurrect his season. Hamlin finished second, Briscoe third, and Ty Gibbs fourth. JGR has shown how well its drivers handle these situations, and when it comes to the final nine races, that is unlikely to change.
Yet there is one driver who can spoil the JGR party, and he was the only reason Bell mentioned a 23XI Racing driver while laying out his prediction for who wins the Cup Series.
Reddick has taken back-to-back third-place finishes and is currently fourth in the standings, just 24 points behind Hamlin. He started the season in red-hot form, winning the first four races before adding a fifth win in Kansas. But ever since, he has gone a bit cold.
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If Reddick can find that fire again, he may be the one thorn in the side of every JGR driver over the final nine races.
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