Chase Briscoe held on against Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell in the closest finish of the 2026 NASCAR Cup season. They were separated by just 0.029s at the checkered flag, slamming doors at the exit of Turn 4.
After 400 miles and 267 laps, Sunday's NASCAR Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway came down to a few feet. Struggling with the tires and facing a lot of lapped traffic, Briscoe ran the outside line as Bell dove to the inside in the final corner. They made contact in turn 4, but somehow both drivers managed to hang onto their race cars.
Watch: Briscoe edges Bell in Charlotte photo finish
Briscoe won the race with Bell finishing second. Ryan Blaney finished third, Josh Berry fourth, and Denny Hamlin fifth. Kyle Larson, Shane van Gisbergen, Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, and Chris Buescher filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Despite his worst finish of the Chase, Larson extended his championship lead to 49 points over Hamlin, but Bell is now -51pts and Briscoe closes to -65pts with back-to-back wins.
Stage 1
Larson led from pole, but Cindric made some noise early. He nearly collided with his teammate Blaney, got into the door of Reddick, and was running down Larson as they raced towards the Lap 35 competition caution. Cindric pulled alongside Larson for the lead just as the scheduled caution flag flew.
There were several issues on pit road for Chase drivers. Elliott had to make an extra stop to tighten a lug nut, Blaney was caught speeding, and Hamlin was penalized when a crew member fell off the wall trying to grab a tire.
On the restart, Reddick slid up into the wall with Gibbs and Logano getting a piece of the incident in the ensuing check-up. Gibbs suffered a broken toe-link and spun soon after, taking Keselowski with him. He lost seven laps repairing the No. 54 Toyota on pit road.
In the next run, Bubba Wallace led some laps before Larson eventually took it back on the long run. Larson was set to win the stage as Wallace slipped back to fifth, and with three laps to go in the opening stage, chaos broke out.
Alex Bowman was attempting to pass Wallace for P5 but snapped around, over-correcting up the track and crashing into Wallace. Both cars wrecked hard, collecting William Byron and eliminating all three cars from the race. Thankfully, everyone walked away from the crash under their own power, although it took Wallace a couple of minutes to get out of his car.
Larson won Stage 1 under caution, followed by Briscoe, Bell, Cindric, Reddick, Suarez, Heim, Hocevar, Buescher, and Blaney.
Stage 2
At the start of the second stage, Larson remained in control but Bell managed to work his way by him as the run progressed. Before green-flag pit stops could begin, John Hunter Nemechek spun down the frontstretch and triggered a caution.
On the restart that followed, Hamlin was finally back inside the top five and directly behind his title rival. He wasted no time putting the bumper to Larson, knocking him up the track and costing him several positions.
Larson fell back to seventh but slowly worked his way back forward after the setback.
Bell continued to lead the way, winning Stage 2 over Blaney, Hamlin, Larson, Reddick, Cindric, Briscoe, Berry, Elliott, and Hocevar.
Stage 3
Blaney won the race off pit road, but on the restart, Bell made an aggressive three-wide pass to overtake both the Penske driver and Larson.
Bell led Briscoe and Blaney as they settled into a long run with critical green-flag pit stops ahead of them all. But once again, a caution flew before we could ever see green-flag pit stops, as Gray Gaulding crashed on the backstretch after getting shoved up by Reddick.
Briscoe won the race off pit road, and led the field to the green flag for a restart with 56 laps to go.
As he tried to defend against a charging Bell, there was some great racing back in the pack. Heim got into the wall while battling Cindric, Elliott made a three-wide pass through the infield turf as Gibbs and A.Dillon made contact, and there was a very spirited battle between Logano and the Trackhouse cars at the backend of the top ten. Blaney also got a piece of the wall while battling Reddick for a top five spot.
Bell had a big wiggle, which gave Briscoe some breathing room with about 35 laps to go. Other cars struggled with the handling during that lengthy green-flag run as well, with Reddick and Chastain also making corrections as their cars wobbled up the track. McDowell pushed up into the wall, but everyone kept their cars pointed in the right direction.
As Briscoe pulled out to a two-second lead, Hamlin nearly lost it while running third, forfeiting the position to Blaney. But as the race leader encountered a wall of traffic and began to struggle with his own tires, Bell rapidly closed the gap.
Diving to the inside in the final corner, they collided at the exit of Turn 4 with the checkered flag in sight. Both cars slid sideways, with drivers sawing at the wheel as they drag-raced to the finish line and Briscoe winning by just 0.029s.