NASCAR winners and losers: Bell and Gragson shine, FOX and Trackhouse blunder

NASCAR took to Circuit of The Americas on Sunday for a barnburner of an event won by No. 20 driver Christopher Bell.

Bell’s win was strong, but it was something of an upset considering the strength of the road course racers in the field. He’s one of our winners, but who made it to our list of losers?

Winners and losers at the NASCAR EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix

Winner: Christopher Bell

Christopher Bell is a back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series winner. During Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas, the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver out-wrangled Kyle Busch and road course veterans like Shane van Gisbergen to take a victory despite starting 19th on the grid.

This is the first time a driver has won two of the first three Cup Series races since 2018, when Kevin Harvick took that honor. And it’s another sign that Bell is well on his way to putting together an all-time great season.

If you needed any additional evidence that Bell is on a tear, look no further than where he parked his car after his celebratory post-race burnout: Directly in front of a Toyota banner. That’s the kind of attention to detail that wins championships.

Loser: Connor Zilisch

Connor Zilisch is about as close an analog to Max Verstappen that the Cup Series has. A wunderkind who made headlines by taking class wins in the 2024 Daytona 24 and the 12 Hours of Sebring, and who is the first American to win the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Tophy, Zilisch has seemed frankly unstoppable.

His impressive IMSA debut saw him earn rides in ARCA (where he won five of the seven events he entered last year) and the two lower tiers of NASCAR’s national series in 2024, with his Cup debut taking place this weekend at Circuit of The Americas.

Hopes were high for Zilisch — perhaps untenably high — but after he dominated the Xfinity race at the track on Saturday, a strong performance on Sunday didn’t seem too far out of the realm of possibility.

Unfortunately, Zilisch was involved in a first-lap incident that saw him drop to the very rear of the field. He managed to fight his way up to 14th with 44 laps remaining in the 95-lap event, only to be collected in a spin by Daniel Suarez.

A win likely would have been out of the picture this weekend regardless, but Zilisch was denied a shot at making it to the checkered flag and showing what he’s made of.

Winner: Noah Gragson

No. 4 Front Row Motorsports driver Noah Gragson needed a strong finish at COTA after what has been an otherwise difficult start to the season.

At both Daytona and Atlanta, Gragson held his own and performed well, only to be swept up in crashes and either knocked out of the race or left to finish at the back of the pack. In both events, his pace and race craft failed to amount to any tangible benefit.

While he would have been hoping for a better finish than eighth place (he’d been running as high as fourth near the end), Gragson’s day at COTA was the kind of day that helps bolster confidence.

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Loser: Trackhouse Racing

The hype around Zilisch warranted him his own slot on the losers list, but Trackhouse overall was a mess this weekend.

No. 99 Trackhouse Racing driver looked strong until he hit a kerb and lost control as the field came back to green-flag racing after the end of Stage 2. Daniel Suarez spun, forcing the drivers behind him to scatter.

Perhaps he could have made it back to the pits for some repairs, but the one driver that wasn’t able to avoid Suarez was his rookie teammate Connor Zilisch, who attempted to pass Suarez but who didn’t quite make it.

This is the second DNF in a row for Suarez, who is one of the drivers looking to extend a deal with his Trackhouse team. His performance thus far in 2025 hasn’t done much to make his case for him — particularly when you consider that Zilisch’s name has been thrown into the ring as a potential Suarez replacement.

On top of that, the No. 88 of Shane van Gisbergen was a strong favorite heading into the weekend and certainly looked set to take a decisive victory in the early stages of the race, but when it came time to deliver, van Gisbergen crumbled. His restarts were poor, and his attempts at passing later in the race nearly wiped out his other teammate, the No. 1 of Ross Chastain.

Add into that some perplexing pit calls from the Trackhouse team, particularly when it came to forming van Gisbergen’s strategy, and it was a messy weekend all around.

Winner: Chase Elliott

There was a time when Chase Elliott could be expected to head to a road course race and take a decisive victory, but when the Gen 6 car was replaced with the Next-Gen machine, Elliott’s performance suffered.

On Saturday at COTA, Elliott looked set to regain his title as road course master… only to be collected in a first-corner wreck on Sunday. The No. 9 driver sustained damage and wasn’t expected to perform particularly well.

He finished fourth in what was a frankly stunning recovery drive, making him a near guaranteed winner.

Loser: FOX

You could throw a blanket over the top four drivers in the closing laps of the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas, but if you were only listening to the booth, you might be convinced you’d tuned into a relatively dismal game of golf.

Add to that the fact that a pass for the lead was obscured by — curiously — a camera shot of the back of a grandstand, and you had a recipe for a real stinker of a closing race call.

Add to that the fact that the booth had no idea what turns featured track limits, and the fact that the broadcast had a tendency to cut directly from a wreck to a commercial break before viewers had a chance to see any replays to understand what had happened, and you have a frankly uninspiring broadcast that raises more questions than answers.

I promise I won’t harp on this every week — at least, until we move to the part of the season where a new broadcaster takes over — but it is frankly shocking to see how far FOX has fallen despite over two decades of NASCAR coverage. Particularly when newcomers like The CW have managed to create an informative and entertaining package for the Xfinity Series.

The problem with a bad broadcast isn’t just that the broadcast ends up on our ‘losers’ list, it’s that any fans watching at home end up on the losers list, too.

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