NASCAR has pledged to review radio communications between several teams in the closing laps of Sunday's controversial penultimate Cup race of 2024 at Martinsville, which decided the Championship 4 protagonists.
Victory for Ryan Blaney secured his place along with Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick, but race control elected to remove Christopher Bell from next week's title decider in Phoenix after the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota ran deep into the final corner and appeared to ride the wall.
It was enough for NASCAR to call foul, as the move was banned following Ross Chastain's precedent at Martinsville in 2022 that locked him into that year's Championship 4.
Hendrick Chevrolet driver William Byron was elevated into the Championship 4 in Bell's place, but NASCAR faced several questions concerning the questionable radio communication involving several other teams.
These pertained to Byron's Chevrolet allies Austin Dillon (Richard Childress Racing) and Chastain (Trackhouse Racing), who raced side-by-side behind Byron in the closing laps in an apparent bid to protect his position, and the rapidly slowing 23XI Racing Toyota of Bubba Wallace who reportedly had a tyre issue.
NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said these communications had not factored into the sanctioning body's decision to penalise Bell, and that the messages will be reviewed early this week.
"If you look at the other situations that were going; 23 [Wallace], the cars behind the 24 [Byron], really no bearing at this time," said Sawyer. "We'll look at those at a later time."
He did not commit to saying that more penalties could be possible, only adding: "We'll look at it."
Watch: NASCAR's Elton Sawyer explains decision to penalize Christopher Bell
NASCAR will also not allow JGR to protest Bell's elimination, which is considered irreversible and not subject to challenge.
"It's a race violation," explained Sawyer. "Race violation, you don't protest them.
"It's not appealable, I should say. No different than an uncontrolled tyre or too many men over the wall or anything like that."
When asked if there would have been more immediate scrutiny on the events surrounding Wallace or the Chevy drivers, Sawyer shied away from speaking on hypotheticals.
"The hypotheticals is really difficult; I don't want to be making statements of things, ifs, ands and buts," he said.
"Like I said, the main focus for us in the tower, when the situation happened, was focusing on the #20 [Bell] car.
"Let's figure out where we are at there. To me and our team, there was focus more on that than the other stuff.
"The other stuff was there, don't get me wrong. The #20 rose to the level that 'we got to figure this one out pretty quick.'"
Watch: Race Rewind: How the Championship 4 field was determined at Martinsville
