Getting HEATED.
It was an eventful race for Christopher Bell at COTA, who wound up finishing second behind William Byron at the Austin, Texas, road course. Although, he might have a target on his back after wrecking both Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch during the course of the NASCAR Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas.
On Lap 22, Bell spun Larson while the two were battling for position near the top of the field, and then, Bell spun out Busch not too long after that going into Turn 1. Busch would up finishing 9th, and Larson 17th.
After the race, Busch immediately confronted his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate on the incident, and promised to wreck him in the future:
“Have I ever wrecked you? Ok, that s***’s coming.”
Christopher Bell didn’t have too much to say…
After the race, Bell took more blame for the Kyle Larson incident, compared to the dust up with Kyle Busch. He argued that he was in his line when Busch crossed over:
“A true road course race that’s for sure, it was nice to get long green flag runs… I just don’t know… Larson I made a mistake and I got into the back of him and spun him out. But KB, he opened his entry up and then tried to crossover when I was running my line. Had I know that he was gonna come across the race track I would’ve braked a little bit but I never expected him to do that.
I don’t know, I haven’t seen a replay either so… I need to see a replay.”
In another conversation about the race, Bell said:
“I mean, yeah, obviously he’s very upset, which 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. But KB 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.”
We’ll see if retribution comes next week when the Cup Series heads to Richmond for the Toyota Owners 40o.
