NASCAR insiders react to thrilling photo-finish at Phoenix between Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson

The end to the race at Phoenix in the NASCAR Cup Series was everything fans hoped it would be. It had a photo finish between three of the best drivers in the sport.

In the end, Christopher Bell took home the win and the three-peat, becoming the first to win three straight races since Kevin Harvick did it in 2018. It was well-deserved.

But the close to the race was intriguing for a few reasons. One, the tire strategies lined up for the contenders — Bell, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson.

“Listen, I think you had a strength on strength moment there,” said Jeff Gluck, a NASCAR insider for The Athletic, on The Teardown podcast. “It was going to be really fun to decide it, because you had equal tires, all those three guys in the top three. We obviously know Bell, Hamlin, Larson are some of the best to do it, the best out there.”

Larson was the one left with the majority of the decision-making after starting behind the other two. He quickly made his call.

“It was interesting because on the restart Larson gives Hamlin a big push, and I’m not talking about the push on the backstretch, but the push to start and getting Hamlin going,” Gluck explained. “Larson timed it perfect in order to do that. He nailed it. It helped Hamlin get a really good run.

“Then Larson has to choose. He has a moment where he has to choose on the backstretch. OK, do I try to make this three-wide? Do I try to go down low? Or do I maybe push Denny and see if that can get them along side by side, maybe I can try to clear Bell, something like that. So I asked him after the race about this. He just felt like if he ducked down he wasn’t necessarily going to have the angle to make it all work. He was going to lose momentum. The guys behind him were going to be charging really quickly and it was going to be maybe a dicey moment. Maybe he wrecks all three of them, right?”

The veteran NASCAR driver of the No. 5 opted not to take the aggressive route, potentially ensuring mutual destruction for all three drivers. He opted to play it a little safer.

“So he figured, OK, let me push Hamlin, try to get him alongside Bell,” Gluck said. “They’ll race each other, right? And then what Larson was hoping is, OK, they’ll have contact. They’re going to race each other so hard here they’ll have contact and then I can take advantage and get the win.”

The two drivers in front of him had other ideas. Neither panicked.

Both were content to take it to the finish line while racing hard against each other. They were careful to avoid contact whenever possible. Larson never got his moment to possibly steal the NASCAR Cup Series win.

“As it turned out, Bell and Hamlin race each other — and it was interesting because Denny had said afterwards too, talking to Denny, and he said, ‘I’ve never really raced Bell for the win like that,’ which was interesting,” Gluck said. “They haven’t really gone head-to-head, straight-up for a race win.

“But the degree of difficulty was what really impressed me on that. Because they are side-drafting the absolute crap of each other within inches. Just so close without hitting doors.”

There was another added complication. Both Hamlin and Bell race for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series circuit. They’re teammates.

“And obviously Hamlin, too, he’s like being teammates in that situation is so hard because he said we could look like total idiots here if we take ourselves out and wreck, being in control of the race like that and we’re the top two cars,” Gluck said. “If we wreck and run into each other and Larson wins that’s going to be such a bad look. So they have to race each other as hard as possible without running into each other and race for the win. So Bell kind of ran him up the track but it was clean. Another clean finish.”

Bell took the win home over Hamlin, but it was a thrilling finish for the viewers. Definitely one of the more exciting finishes for NASCAR in Phoenix in recent memory.