After Coke 600 pole, Briscoe says he’s been under-driving at JGR

After four seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing, Chase Briscoe was chosen to replace former Cup champion Martin Truex Jr. at Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) as the NASCAR veteran decided to step away from full-time competition. 

Partnering with crew chief James Small, he came out of the gate swinging with a pole position in the Daytona 500 — Toyota’s first pole in the iconic event. However, it has been an average season since then. Briscoe isn’t running slow as he currently sits inside the playoffs with four top fives, but he isn’t winning multiple races like teammates Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin, either.

A different atmosphere with higher expectations 

“It is definitely different,” said Bricoe about the transition in joining JGR. “The expectation is so much higher at a place like JGR. I was telling my dad — after the Bristol race, all four JGR cars were in the top-eight, and if we would have had all of the cars at SHR in the top-10, we would have been going nuts. It would have been the best day ever, at least towards the end of SHR, where at JGR, at the comp (competition) meeting, you would have thought we all four ran 30th or worse. It is so different. You are expected to go win and be the best car and the company is expected to be the best company each week, from that standpoint, the mental side of things has been way different.

“That expectation change has been an adjustment for me. It is nice that it is back to that, but it is different than what I’ve been used to the last couple of years. For me, I feel like we are not even close to our full ability, and a lot of it just comes down to Saturdays. The cars have so much more potential than anything I’m used to driving in the Cup Series that a lot of time in qualifying, I’m just under driving. The car can take so much more. Mentally, I’m so used to having to lift way back here, and this car will just take it.”

Matching the potential of the car

Chase Briscoe, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Photo by: David Jensen / Getty Images

In the same press conference on Friday, Briscoe mentioned how he wanted to qualify better, and less than one day later, he earned pole position for the Coca-Cola 600. “We’ve been getting the finish, but we haven’t been running up front all day long,” he said then. “It all starts in qualifying.”

Well, now he has the track position to start NASCAR’s longest race, and the preferred pit stall. In the post-qualifying media availability, he talked more about the difficult adjustment it has been.

“The team has done the same thing all year, it’s just me not driving hard enough, truthfully,” admitted Briscoe. I talked about it yesterday. This car just has so much potential that I’m just not used to being able to do the things that this car will do because in the past my car would – look at last year here, I plugged the fence down coming off of turn four trying to do what I just did there. Just the capability of this car is so much more than I‘ve ran my entire career, and it has just taken a few months to get to used to that, so hopefully this will kind of be the start of normal, qualifying and competing for poles. It is definitely a nice turnaround from what we’ve had.”

Finding Victory Lane

Chase Briscoe, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Photo by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

While poles and points are good, Briscoe’s focus remains on getting the No. 19 back to Victory Lane. Truex went winless in his final season, but he won three races and the regular season title in 2023. Briscoe has two career wins, both with SHR (Richmond 2022 and the Southern 500 in 2024).

“I wanted just to win, truthfully,” said Briscoe. “The top-fives are great, right? I think I’m only one behind my career high, ever, and we are 12, 13 weeks in, so from that standpoint, it is encouraging, but I want to win races — that is the main goal for me. It is weird. We’ve had the results, but I feel like we have been so bad. I don’t even feel like we are close to our potential. James (Small, crew chief) and I have talked the last three or four weeks that we don’t even feel like we’ve scratched the surface of what we are capable of.

“We are still learning each other so much, and I’m still learning the car still. So to be still as competitive as we’ve been for how bad we feel like we are is exciting for both of us. It is just a matter of putting all of those pieces together, and even earlier in the year, I’ve been telling everybody by Charlotte is where I need to start feeling comfortable and kind of knowing what I have, and I feel like I’m getting to that point. So, hopefully, I can turn it around. If I had to grade myself right now, it would be a B-, C+. Hopefully, here in a month, I can say we are an A.”