Townsend Lorenz Bell[1] (born April 19, 1975) is an American professional motor racing driver competing in the IMSAWeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and also as a motorsports commentator for NBC Sports’ IndyCar Series coverage.
Early career
He spent time in karting, Skip Barber, Formula Dodge and the Barber Dodge Pro Series before graduating to Indy Lights in 2000. He won the Indy Lights championship in 2001. This earned him two late-season starts in a Champ Car in a joint effort between Patrick Racing and Dale Coyne Racing. He earned Roberto Moreno's seat at Patrick for 2002. He scored a best finish of fourth at Portland, however a run of disappointing performances and a two probation sanctions from CART Chief Steward Wally Dallenbach Sr. led to his firing from the team after the nine races.[2]
His performance in F3000 led to Formula One tests with the Jaguar and BAR Honda F1 teams.
Return to IndyCar
Bell (foreground) participating in the Pit Stop Challenge on Carb Day at the 2015 Indianapolis 500
Despite earning a test with British American Racing at year's end, Bell returned to America where he replaced Mark Taylor for Panther Racing in the Indy Racing LeagueIndyCar Series midway through 2004, and posted a best finish of fifth. He started one race as an injury replacement for Tomáš Enge in the same car in 2005. He made his first Indianapolis 500 appearance for Vision Racing in 2006, qualifying 15th and finishing 22nd. He returned to the IndyCar Series in 2008 driving the No. 23 car in events where Milka Duno was not scheduled to race. His best result in 2008 was an eighth-place finish at Richmond International Raceway in June. He also was entered in a third team car in the Indy 500, where he qualified twelfth and finished tenth.
In 2009, 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's Will Power on the last restart, Bell impressed with a fourth-place finish.
Bell posted his best Indianapolis 500 qualifying effort to date in 2011, racing for Sam 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 made his sports car debut in 2012 and won the 12 Hours of Sebring on debut with Alex Job Racing. That season, he drove a Lotus 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.[5]
He matched his Sebring feat in his first Rolex 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.[6] 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.[7]
In 2016, Bell along with teammates Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler won the 24 Hours of LeMans in only their second try.
In the famous Indy500 in 2016 Townsend clocked a top speed of 241.637 mph.[8]
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-Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 for the 2019 & 2020 GTD class seasons.[9]
Bell has filled in for Formula One coverage on NBC, most notably in 2016 when he replaced Will Buxton, who was on bereavement leave for the races at Sepang and Mexico City.
