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Townsend Bell
Bell at the2015 Indianapolis 500
Born	(1975-04-19)April 19, 1975 (age 50) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Verizon IndyCar Series career
Debut season	2004
Racing licence	FIA Gold
Starts	28
Wins	0
Poles	0
Best finish	21st in2004
Previous series
2003 2001–2002 2000–2001 1999	Formula 3000 CART World Series Indy Lights Barber Dodge Pro Series
Championship titles
2001 2015	Indy Lights United SportsCar Championship GTD

Townsend Lorenz Bell^[1] (born April 19, 1975) is an American professional motor racing driver competing in theIMSAWeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and also as a motorsports commentator for FOX Sports’ IndyCar Series coverage.

He spent time in karting, Skip Barber, Formula Dodge and the Barber Dodge Pro Series before graduating to Indy Lights in 2000. He won theIndy Lights championship in2001. This earned him two late-season starts in aChamp Car in a joint effort betweenPatrick Racing andDale Coyne Racing. He earnedRoberto Moreno's seat at Patrick for2002. He scored a best finish of fourth at Portland, however a run of disappointing performances and a two probation sanctions from CART Chief StewardWally Dallenbach Sr. led to his firing from the team after the nine races.^[2]

His efforts shifted to Europe and in 2003 he was teammate to series championBjörn Wirdheim inInternational F3000 competition. Bell was the first American to score a F3000 podium with a third place at theHungaroring and he finished ninth overall in a field covered with futureFormula One talent –Giorgio Pantano,Patrick Friesacher,Vitantonio Liuzzi andNicolas Kiesa among them.

His performance in F3000 led to Formula One tests with the Jaguar and BAR Honda F1 teams.

Despite earning a test withBritish American Racing at year's end, Bell returned to America where he replacedMark Taylor forPanther Racing in theIndy Racing LeagueIndyCar Series midway through2004, and posted a best finish of fifth. He started one race as an injury replacement forTomáš Enge in the same car in2005. He made his firstIndianapolis 500 appearance forVision Racing in 2006, qualifying fifteenth and finishing 22nd. He returned to the IndyCar Series in2008 driving the No. 23 car in events whereMilka Duno was not scheduled to race. His best result in 2008 was an eighth place finish atRichmond International Raceway in June. He also was entered in a third team car in the Indy 500, where he qualified twelfth and finished tenth.

In2009,KV Racing Technology entered Bell in the Indy 500, engineered by Gerald Tyler. Bell was on a limited-month schedule but had an impressive race day, advancing from 24th on the grid up to the top five. Passing Team Penske'sWill Power on the last restart, Bell impressed with a fourth-place finish.

Bell posted his best Indianapolis 500 qualifying effort to date in2011, racing forSam Schmidt Motorsports, once again engineered by Tyler. By qualifying fourth fastest, he started the 95th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing on the inside of the second row.

Bell finished ninth in the2012 Indianapolis 500 withSam Schmidt Motorsports, engineered by Tyler. His2014 Indianapolis 500, back with KV Racing Technology in the No. 6Robert Graham Dallara-Chevrolet,^[3] marked his eighth start in the event and seventh consecutive.

He qualified fourth and led twelve laps in the 2016 Indy 500, racing for Andretti Autosport, before an incident on pit road during caution. He finished 21st.

Bell made his sports car debut in 2012 and won the12 Hours of Sebring on debut withAlex Job Racing. That season, he drove aLotus Evora GTE for Alex Job Racing in the American Le Mans Series with Bill Sweedler, before he and Sweedler drove a Ferrari F458 Italia the following year with West/AJR.^[4]

He matched his Sebring feat in his firstRolex 24 at Daytona start in 2014, winning that driving with Level 5 Motorsports. Bell and Sweedler won the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup with AIM Autosport, after finishing first or second in three of the four races in the endurance series within the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.^[5] The pairing finished fourth overall in the full season GT Daytona class points.

In 2015, Bell and co-driver Bill Sweedler took home the IMSA GT Daytona Championship. In addition, they had a dominant win at VIR and podium finishes in the 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of LeMans.^[6]

In 2016, Bell along with teammates Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler won the 24 Hours of LeMans in only their second try.

In the famousIndy500 in 2016 Townsend clocked a top speed of 241.637 mph.^[7]

He is competed full-time in the 2017 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona class with Alex Job Racing in an Audi R8 GT3 and returned to Le Mans with Ferrari in 2017.

Most recently, Bell has competed in the AIM Vasser-SullivanLexus RC F GT3 for the 2019 & 2020 GTD class seasons.^[8]

Since2025, Bell is a color commentator forFOX Sports with lead anchorWill Buxton and fellow analystJames Hinchcliffe.

Bell has filled in for Formula One coverage on NBC, most notably in 2016 when he replacedWill Buxton, who was on bereavement leave for the races atSepang andMexico City.

Bell is also a color commentator for NBC Sports'sGlobal RallyCross Championship. He has also both competed and commented in theStadium Super Trucks.^[9]

At the 2013 X-Games in Munich, Bell competed in Global Rallycross and finished sixth in the final.

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position; races initalics indicate fastest lap.)

¹ Run on same day.

² Non-points race.

³ TheLas Vegas Indy 300 was abandoned afterDan Wheldon died from injuries sustained in a 15-car crash on lap 11.

(key)

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2015	Scuderia Corsa	Jeff Segal Bill Sweedler	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Am	330	24th	3rd
2016	Scuderia Corsa	Jeff Segal Bill Sweedler	Ferrari 458 Italia GT2	GTE Am	331	26th	1st
2017	Scuderia Corsa	Bill Sweedler Cooper MacNeil	Ferrari 488 GTE	GTE Am	331	29th	3rd
Source:[28]

(key) (Races inbold indicate pole position; results initalics indicate fastest lap)

• Townsend Bell Interview
• IndyCar Driver Page

Wikimedia Commons has media related toTownsend Bell.

• http://townsendbell.com/

• 1975 births
• Living people
• Champ Car drivers
• IndyCar Series drivers
• Indianapolis 500 drivers
• Indy Lights champions
• Indy Lights drivers
• International Formula 3000 drivers
• Racing drivers from San Francisco
• American Le Mans Series drivers
• 24 Hours of Daytona drivers
• 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
• Barber Pro Series drivers
• WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers
• 21st-century American sportsmen
• Stadium Super Trucks drivers
• Global RallyCross Championship drivers
• Arden International drivers
• Arrow McLaren SP drivers
• Panther Racing drivers
• Vision Racing drivers
• Dreyer & Reinbold Racing drivers
• KV Racing Technology drivers
• Andretti Autosport drivers
• Level 5 Motorsports drivers

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• BLP articles lacking sources from October 2013
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• Commons link from Wikidata