Bank of America 400: Briscoe beats Bell in Charlotte photo finish

CONCORD, N.C. — In the sixth race of the NASCAR Cup Series Chase, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe bested his teammate Christopher Bell in a thrilling photo finish in the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Briscoe was a strong contender all race long, leading 62 of 267 laps and scoring 13 stage points en route to his second consecutive victory.

“Very, very special,” Briscoe said about the win. “I think this is only the second ever time that all of us have been at a win. Super special to be able to experience these type of things with family. It is awesome when you win, but they are on the grind with us and for them to be here and experience this is memories that will be forever for me. Really cool day to get to Victory Lane with them here; my grandparents are here and I don’t think they have been to a race since 2019. Really cool just to have everyone here.

“Really cool to be here at home — a lot of our crew guys, their families are here — pit crew guys’ families are here. There is just a lot of pride winning here; amazing day. Super cool to get Free Bird in Victory Lane. They’ve only done three races, so to get them in Victory Lane on the third time — I’m pretty thankful. This Camry looked great out there.”

Bell, in his No. 20 DeWalt Toyota, had one of his strongest races of the Cup Series Chase. Bell scored a race-high 18 stage points, won Stage 2 and led 93 of 267 laps before finishing just 0.029 seconds behind his JGR teammate.

“I got a lot closer than I thought I was going to,” Bell said. “I mean, we should be really good at the next couple of races. Yeah, hopefully we can keep bringing these fast race cars and see what happens.”

Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney was making his way through the field toward the end of the Bank of America 400, and his No. 12 Discount Tire Ford was consistently the fastest car on track. Blaney ended up finishing third in the Queen City.

“I was able to come back from that [pit-road speeding penalty], so proud of that effort,” Blaney said. “Yeah, just keep going, and I’m looking forward to the next month.

“I look forward to it (Phoenix Raceway), but I look forward to going no matter where it’s at every week. I think this team can do a great job at figuring out things when we need to, whether that’s going to a track we’ve been successful at, or going to tracks we need to work at. They’ve done a really good job. Phoenix has been a good one for us, and hopefully it’ll be a good one again next week.”

Results from the 2026 Bank of America 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway are listed below:

Other Race Facts

This was the first Charlotte Motor Speedway fall race to take place on the traditional 1.5-mile oval instead of the Roval layout since 2017.

A hard crash took out Alex Bowman, William Byron and Bubba Wallace while all three drivers were battling inside the top 10.

For Wallace, his hopes of a “generational Chase run” seem to be coming to an end after five straight top 15s to start The Chase were followed by a 37th-place finish at Charlotte that put him 185 points behind and 11th in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.

“No warning,” Wallace said about the crash. “I saw it in the last second — the 48 (Alex Bowman) come up and clip us. No hard feelings, that is just racing. I was starting to drop, and it gets into a tight spot. To get on pit road smooth, we wanted to stay in front of him. He just got loose and got us. The first hit wiped our brakes out. The second hit got me good. But we are good. Still got nine fingers and nine toes (laughter), so we are fine.”

The finish to the 2026 Bank of America 400 was the second-closest in Charlotte Motor Speedway history. The 2005 margin of victory was 0.027 seconds, and it was 0.029 seconds in 2026.

Wood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry finished fourth, earning his third top-five finish of the 2026 season.

“I felt like our car was really strong all day,” Berry said. “We made some good progress at the start and then when the 54 (Ty Gibbs) got the wall on that restart, we went all the way to the back again because it was right in front of us. We battled back from the back again and I was really happy with the car the majority of the race. We just kind of plugged along and finally had a real good long run there at the end and was able to make some progress.”

Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen also had one of his strongest oval performances in his Cup Series career, finishing seventh.

“Yeah, I’m glad the organization has gotten better,” van Gisbergen said. “Having Ross (Chastain) up there too, we’ve had too many days of running 30th as a team, so it was good that we’ve made some progress. This No. 97 SuperFile Chevrolet team has had two solid weekends in a row and we can be proud of that. We changed a lot on our cars, trying to understand them and get them better. It’s really nice to see some progress. Charlotte (Motor Speedway) seems to suit us. We seem to have a good base setup for this track.”

Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson continues to impress during The Chase. Larson’s sixth-place finish was his worst result of The Chase so far, but he leaves Charlotte with a larger points lead (49) heading to Phoenix Raceway.

“It’s just been a good start to The Chase for this No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet team,” Larson said. “It’s our first finish outside of the top five, but only one spot out of the top five. We just kind of lost the balance there at the end. I knew it was a really long run and I just tried to take care of my tires early, but it just got really loose. We’ll take it. The first stage played out exactly how we needed it to. The cautions were kind of coming out right when I was about to get passed. The second stage was promising. I had that really bad start, but we fought our way back into the top five and got good points there. Coming home with a sixth-place finish, all in all, like we maximized our day.”

Chase Driver Charlotte Results

• Chase Briscoe (1st)
• Christopher Bell (2nd)
• Ryan Blaney (3rd)
• Denny Hamlin (5th)
• Kyle Larson (6th)
• Tyler Reddick (8th)
• Joey Logano (9th)
• Chris Buescher (10th)
• Chase Elliott (12th)
• Daniel Suárez (13th)
• Carson Hocevar (14th)
• Ryan Preece (15th)
• Austin Cindric (17th)
• Ty Gibbs (34th)
• Bubba Wallace (37th)
• William Byron (39th)

Chase Standings Post-Charlotte

GRID Ranking

The 2026 GRID Ranking is the 10th year of the world’s premier motorsports ranking system, which was initially released on Sunday, April 5.
The official ranking includes drivers participating in seven racing series (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, WRC, Supercars, MotoGP). Each driver earns GRID Ratings, which help determine their seeding in the GRID Ranking.

DRIVER	OLD RATING	PREVIOUS RANKING	MOST RECENT FINISH	NEW RATING	NEW RANKING
Denny Hamlin	N/A	N/A	5th	12.86	5th
Tyler Reddick	N/A	N/A	8th	11.98	13th
Christopher Bell	N/A	N/A	2nd	11.56	14th
Kyle Larson	N/A	N/A	6th	11.33	15th
Chase Briscoe	N/A	N/A	1st	11.15	18th

Week 28 of the GRID Ranking:

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, Oct. 18. Coverage begins at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.

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