AVONDALE, Ariz. – Ryan Blaney overcame adversity and held off Christopher Bell in the closing laps to win the Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway.

Blaney was strong early on, winning Stage 1; however, the driver of the Team Penske No. 12 Dent Wizard Ford had to rally from the rear on two occasions after pitting outside of the box and after his crew had a loose tire. Despite the challenges, he continued to find himself towards the front of the field. Blaney led the final 10 laps of Sunday’s race with Bell right behind him. Blaney held on for his 18^th career series victory and his second at Phoenix.

“Obviously the 20 (Christopher Bell) was the best car. Jonathan (Hassler, crew chief) made a great call to take two,” Blaney said. “We were able to get the lead. Hold them off.

 “I don’t know how many more laps I could have held them off. We were able to do that. Really proud of everybody at Team Penske. We swept the weekend, (Josef) Newgarden winning yesterday, us winning today. Can’t wait to see Roger (Penske).”

Bell finished second in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota. While Blaney was fast, Bell appeared to be faster all race long. He entered the race as the defending winner, and he won Stage 2. On the final lap, Bell had closed the gap to less than half-of-a-second, but he ultimately ran out of time to overtake Blaney.

Bell said, “If we had more green flag laps, I think we could have made a run at him.

 “I don’t know. You win some, you lose some. This one stings, but on the positive side I’m really proud of our entire team. The pit crew did amazing. Adam brought an amazing car. Our mechanics, engineers did really good.”

Kyle Larson finished third in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet. He started the race in second on the front row, but Larson struggled throughout the entire race. In fact, he didn’t score stage points in Stage 1, and he only finished ninth in Stage 2.

“Yeah, I was not happy to start the race,” Larson said. “Really not happy all weekend. Just proud of the team. We definitely know how to fight to get a good finish here at Phoenix. We do it every time. We’re never good here. It’s not a surprise that we weren’t great.

“We still come up with a third like we typically do here. I think that’s three third-place finishes here in a row. Just proud of the team. It took a lot of fight.”

Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five. Bubba Wallace finished sixth, followed by William Byron, Tyler Reddick, Michael McDowell and Erik Jones.

There were 23 lead changes among eight drivers. Bell led a race high of 176 laps with a dominate performance.

There were a record-tying 12 cautions for 86 laps throughout the race.

Reddick, who won the first three races of the season continues to lead the standings by 60 points over Blaney.

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 15 for the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube. Live coverage will broadcast on FS1 at 4 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images