Who… should you be talking about after the checkered flag?
Christopher Bell was hunting a third straight win in the spring race at Phoenix Raceway and looking to be the driver to knock Tyler Reddick off the podium, leading a race-high 176 of 312 laps. He held a large gap over the field with just 25 laps to go when a flat tire for Austin Dillon brought the leaders to the pits for fresh rubber. With tire issues headlining the day, Bell’s team opted for four new tires while several other teams took just two.
Ryan Blaney’s No. 12 team was one of them.
Blaney had a car capable of running with Bell, and it was arguably better than Bell’s for most of the day. Another caution on lap 294 re-racked the cars for another try. Bell charged though the field from seventh as Blaney worked to dispatch Ty Gibbs at the front. Bell cleared the rest of the field and set sail for Blaney, but he ran out of laps as the two traded faster lap times. Blaney held Bell off long enough to win the Straight Talk Wireless 500 by .399 seconds.
Close but No Cigar for Christopher Bell at Phoenix
The win didn’t come easy for Blaney, who not only had to deal with the late restarts and a hard-charging Bell, but also had to come from the back twice after loose wheels on pit road. Luckily for Blaney, he didn’t lose a wheel, but having to stop to get them fixed, he had to come from deep in the field. When all was said and done, Blaney passed 49 cars en route to his win.
It’s Blaney’s first win of 2026 and the 18th of his Cup career, including two at Phoenix.
On the other hand…
After starting on the pole and leading a total of 73 laps, Blaney’s teammate Joey Logano was involved in not one, but two late-race incidents. One was of his own making on a restart when Logano wasn’t aware that there were two cars to his outside, but he escaped that one only to fall victim to a lap 254 incident that resulted in a hard hit to the outside wall and the end of his bid to win. Logano finished 31st.
What… is the big question everyone should be asking after the race?
Four weeks into the season, it’s still too early to call a lot of things, but is it time for some teams to be concerned with their performance?
In terms of points, a lot can change in a short period of time, particularly as top drivers who got caught in the mayhem of the drafting races to open the year hit tracks where things are less a roll of the dice and more about setups and strategy.
But in terms of overall performance, it’s time for a gut check for teams as isolated events turn into trends quickly in this sport.
Teams who should be taking a harder look include 23XI Racing. Whereas both Reddick and Bubba Wallace are off to a hot start, Riley Herbst … isn’t. Yes, it’s only his second full season, but Herbst has just three top 10s in 40 starts, and one since moving to the No. 35 full-time in 2025. Yes, he brings sponsorship, but it’s time for the tough questions.
The same can be said for Richard Childress Racing. Dillon’s going to be good for a few strong runs a year, but at this point, he’s not championship-contending material, especially with a tougher championship system in place. But at the end of the day, is it Dillon holding RCR back as an organization? True, Kyle Busch has had some terrible luck and Dillon has visited victory lane twice since Busch last did, but if half of the team’s data comes from Dillon, who has always been a mid-pack driver, does that also hold back the No. 8 team? Dillon’s no longer a kid with potential; he’s reached the potential he has. Busch might be a tick past his competitive prime, but it’s hard to say that’s the biggest hindrance to his performance.
On the opposite side of the coin, Spire Motorsports is having a great start to the season. Daniel Suarez took some lumps on Sunday, but as a whole, Spire has two drivers in the top 14 in points—the same number as Joe Gibbs Racing. They’re doing a lot right, and now it’s time to think about the next step.
Where… did he come from?
The most surprising finishes of the day came from the back of the pack to quietly finish inside the top 10. Bubba Wallace started 28th and suffered damage in an incident on a mid-race restart, but he was able to rebound to finish sixth. Wallace has kicked off 2026 as Mr. Consistency, and this week he showed he can overcome adversity to have a strong finish.
Equaling Wallace’s 22-position net gain in Phoenix was Erik Jones, who started his Sunday in 32nd but avoided trouble and took home his first top 10 of the year, finishing 10th.
Finally, while he finished just outside the top 10, Shane van Gisbergen deserves recognition for his 11th-place finish after starting 18th and spinning twice during the race. Van Gisbergen has finished 11th or better in three of the first four races of 2026, with the exception being the Daytona 500, where he led three laps before being collected in a crash and finishing 30th. In two previous Phoenix starts, van Gisbergen finished 31st and 24th.
When… are we going to talk about the points?
Even with his season-worst finish (and we’re talking eighth-place), Reddick holds a 60-point lead over Blaney four weeks into the season after Blaney gained two positions thanks to his win on Sunday.
Wallace continues to show consistency, slotting into third, 72 points behind his teammate, after his sixth-place finish and third top 10 of 2026. Even after an up-and-down day on Sunday, Chase Elliott is fourth, 97 behind Reddick, and van Gisbergen rounds out the top five, 109 in arrears.
Bell gained 18 spots on the points chart this week to move into sixth. Logano slipped one spot to seventh after a late crash ended his day. Michael McDowell gained one spot, moving up to eighth, while Chris Buescher and Kyle Larson both make an appearance in the top 10, placing ninth and 10th respectively.
Bell had the biggest gain of the week, with teammate Denny Hamlin (+11) and Larson (+5) also making big gains. On the flip side, Suarez fell 10 positions to 17th after a late crash on Sunday.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
Of course, the biggest story to watch this week is Alex Bowman’s ongoing health issues. He began feeling unwell during the race at Circuit of the Americas last week and sat out Phoenix due to ongoing vertigo.
Anthony Alfredo filled in and finished 33rd after getting collected in a crash on lap 217. Hendrick Motorsports has assured Bowman the No. 48 will be waiting for him, but Bowman is in a contract year. Missing seat time is time wasted in terms of convincing HMS that he should stay or begin auditioning for another open seat.
Vertigo is difficult to diagnose and predict, so there’s no proven timeline for Bowman here. He’s proven he can win at the Cup level, even when luck hasn’t always been on his side, but his future could hang, at least in part, on his recovery and whether he can return quickly.
The Cup Series finishes its spring West Coast tour at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. With a 9.6 average finish and four previous wins, Logano will be looking to bounce back after a disappointing Phoenix result. Larson will also be looking for a little redemption, and he’s got three wins and a ninth-place average at Las Vegas to back that up. Hamlin and Brad Keselowski also have multiple wins in Sin City and are looking for their first wins of 2026.
How… did this race stack up?
Despite being one of the shorter races on the Cup Schedule at just over 300 miles, Phoenix can be a long day for teams.
Despite having the same Goodyear tire compound as the fall race, there were many more issues on that front. Some of the tire problems can be attributed to debris on the track, a by-product of NASCAR officials seeming to hold off on throwing the caution immediately and giving drivers a chance to roll away from incidents. It’s a fine line between throwing the yellow flag when a driver brushes the wall and holding off too long when there could be debris. It’s impossible to make the right call 100 percent of the time, but as long as NASCAR is consistent in how cautions are handled, viewers should be satisfied.
The tire failures and the cautions they caused did play a role in how the race played out, taking Bell from a three-second lead to seventh with the laps rapidly ticking away. The race was never really able to get into any kind of rhythm because of incidents, tire and otherwise, and while that led to plenty of restarts, it didn’t make for a great race.
Difference-making strategy was minimal, with the exception of the call by Bell’s team to take four tires on his last pit stop while the other leaders took two. Tire concerns for the most part held teams to four-tire stops for most of the race with the exception of the final stops, and gambling with tires didn’t work out well for much of the day.
While it was overall standard Phoenix fare, the race did feature some hard racing behind the leaders and drivers could make moves. There just wasn’t enough action at the front to make it a barnburner, though the last 25 laps were decent.
Chances are pretty good that Bubba ran better after he got the “scratch” just like the other Gibbs cars.