When a Brit called Matt Bell turned up in the LMP3 class of the European Le Mans Series in 2023 there was inevitably some confusion. A presumption was made that it was the same Matt Bell who was racing a P3 in the ELMS-supporting Le Mans Cup having been a fixture in international sportscars for a dozen or more years.
But if there were any aficionados of junior single-seaters in the paddock, they would have understood that there were now two drivers of the same name in town.
That’s because Bell had raced opener wheelers to some effect in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Yet the confusion could be forgiven because he had pretty much disappeared after only one full season in the 2013 BRDC Formula 4 Championship.
Two years on, the befuddlement has dissipated – not only does he now go by his full name of Matthew Richard Bell, but he’s twice been runner-up in the ELMS P3 standings.
The returning Matt Bell became Matt R Bell and now Matthew Richard Bell, he says, “to try to distinguish” himself from his namesake: “There was a lot of confusion initially. Even the ELMS got it wrong, it put his face with my name on some stuff.”
The confusion wasn’t surprising given Bell’s long absence from the cockpit. There were a handful of Radical races in 2015, but apart from that he hadn’t raced since the money ran out after an F4 campaign in which Bell was a race winner against the likes of Jake Hughes, Seb Morris and Charlie Robertson. It wasn’t until 2021 that Bell returned to racing for a full campaign.
The Radical connection is an important one in Bell’s story. He’d raced sporadically in Formula BMW and Formula Palmer Audi in 2007-10 before sitting out 2011. But he and his father had bought an SR3 for track days.
Bell campaigned single-seaters but never managed a full season
Photo by: Motorsport Images
“We had the car and thought we might as well race it,” recalls Bell, who returned to competition in the Radical Clubmans Cup the following year. That was a precursor to what stands as his only complete campaign in single-seaters in 2013.
“When we went to F4 it was pretty much the same set-up as with the Radical to start with; just me, my dad and a mate, running the car off a trailer,” Bell explains. “It was a new championship and we won the first race at Silverstone, but when the big teams got the hang of the car, we went backwards.”
Bell subsequently concentrated on the family renewable energy company, save for those Radical appearances in 2015. He returned by chance six years later when he got a late pre-season call from old friend Rob Wheldon at RAW Motorsports, who’d helped him out back in 2012.
Bell insists that he has no racing ambitions beyond making it third time lucky in P3 in 2025 and being invited to join the British Racing Drivers’ Club
“Rob rang me and told me that they’d had someone pull out at the last moment and asked if I’d fancy coming back,” Bell remembers. “I thought, ‘you know what, I do’. It was only about a week before the first race and I had to do the ARDS flag test again online to regain my licence.”
Bell won the 2021 Challenge title aboard an SR3 but found himself on the sidelines again at the start of the following year. His return came courtesy of the driver he’d beaten into second place in Radicals, Jerome de Sadeleer. The Swiss recommended Bell to the Eurointernational team when it was looking for a quick bronze-rated driver for P3.
Bell was set to sub for de Sadeleer at the Monza ELMS round in 2022, but the plan was scuppered when his FIA driver grading came through as silver. He successfully appealed his original classification for 2022 on the grounds that he hadn’t held a race licence for multiple years before his return in Radicals.
The move up to P3 for 2022 happened thanks to the connection made with Eurointernational, the successor to team boss Antonio Ferrari’s Euromotorsport operation that had run in CART and IMSA in North America in the 1990s. In his first season, he and Canadian Adam Ali took a distant runner-up spot in their Ligier-Nissan JSP320, but the Briton describes this year’s championship “as the one that got away”. He and Ali were ahead going into the Algarve finale and were pipped to the title by a single point.
Bell (left) has performed strongly with Eurointernational Ligier in the ELMS alongside Ali, finishing a close second this year
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Bell insists that he has no racing ambitions beyond making it third time lucky in P3 in 2025 and being invited to join the British Racing Drivers’ Club.
“As far as life experiences go, I’m having a great time,” he says. “If I have to stop again, I’ll be able to say I’m a double ELMS vice-champion and, hopefully after next year, a champion and a BRDC member.”
Matthew Richard Bell CV
Age 34
2024 European Le Mans Series, 2nd LMP3
2023 European Le Mans Series, 2nd LMP3
2021 Radical Challenge, champion
2015 Radical Enduro Championship, 6 races
2013 BRDC F4 Championship, 3 wins
2012 Radical Clubmans Cup, 3rd
2010 Formula Palmer Audi, 3 races
2009 Formula BMW Europe, 2 races
2008 Formula Palmer Audi, 5 races
2007 Formula BMW UK, 6 races
Bell has enjoyed his unexpected career revival and hopes to be back on the ELMS grid next year
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images