NASCAR drivers anonymously reveal who they want as a teammate

NASCAR drivers have weighed in on who they want as a teammate. Ahead of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, the 16 drivers who qualified for the postseason participated in an anonymous survey conducted by Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass. It was determined that Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are the two that drivers want as teammates. Larson got the most votes with four, and Bell was not far behind him with three.

When talking about Bell, one driver wrote, “I just like him. He’s a good kid. He’s a good driver. It’s fun to talk to him about cars. I have a lot of respect for his abilities.” 

Larson and Bell were two of the top drivers during the 2024 season. For Larson, he won the most races of any Cup Series driver with six and even competed in the Indianapolis 500 with a P18 finish. Larson drives for Hendrick Motorsports, and his teammates are Chase Elliott, William Byron and Alex Bowman.

Larson recently spoke to Brad Gillie for Race Industry Week 2024 and outlined his plans for the offseason. “A lot. Our offseasons the last couple of years have been pretty calm. This year it’s getting… although we’re going on a couple of vacations with some racing mixed in, we’re not really home much,” Larson explained. “So yeah, we’ve already been on one vacation, we got another vacation coming up in a week and a half.

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“Then I have some more racing to do, too. I’m excited to go to Australia. I’ll go there. We leave Christmas night for Australia. I go there for just like five or six days to race the sprint car at Perth. It’s promoted by High Limit as well. So, we’re going to pay 100 grand to win which is by far the largest-paying race in Australian sprint car racing history.”

Bell won three races during the 2024 regular season and finished fifth in the Cup Series standings. He drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, and his teammates are Denny Hamlin, Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe.

Before the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race, Bell talked about how he was “cheated” out of competing for a title. “I feel cheated,” Bell said, per NBC Sports. “I feel cheated out of a chance to compete for a championship. It all stems from what happened (with) 15-20 (laps) to go, whenever the race got fixed and manipulated by Chevrolet. That forced our hands to do what we did, and ultimately it forced me into a mistake on the last lap to get into the wall.

“I feel I should never have been in that position. Had the race been ran fairly, (Byron) would have lost enough spots to get me into the final race.”