Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Daniel Suarez maintained their 2024 NASCAR Cup Series championship hopes for another three weeks as the trio capped off the Round of 16 finale at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race with on-track results that enabled them all to transfer into the Playoff’s Round of 12 on Saturday, September 21.
For Briscoe, who raced his way into the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs overall after winning the regular-season finale at Darlington Raceway, the Playoffs commenced on a rough note for the Mitchell, Indiana, native after he was involved in a harrowing accident by T-boning into Playoff contender Kyle Larson on Lap 55 of 260 during the Playoff’s opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Strapped with a 21-point deficit with a 38th-place result from Atlanta, Briscoe redeemed himself during the following Playoff event at Watkins Glen International as he dodged a series of on-track carnages that affected a bevy of Playoff contenders to finish in sixth place. The top-10 run enabled him to boost his way up above the top-12 cutline and with a six-point advantage entering the Round of 16 finale at Bristol.
Once Briscoe took the green flag from fifth place at Bristol, he proceeded to rack up a total of seven stage points with a pair of top-10 runs recorded during both stage periods. Briscoe’s strong night of racing within the top-10 mark then hit a minor roadblock during the final caution period that started with 172 laps remaining when he dropped to within the top-15 mark amid a slow pit service from his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford team.
From the start of the final restart period with 163 laps remaining, Briscoe made up the lost ground by racing his way back into the top 10. Keeping his car intact for the remainder of the event, Briscoe steered his No. 14 Ford without a rearview camera to an eighth-place result, which was enough for him to claim the 12th and final transfer spot into the Playoff’s Round of 12 by 11 points.
With his accomplishment, Briscoe, who also transferred past the Round of 12 and as high as up to the Round of 8 during his first Playoff bid in 2022, continues to set his sights on making the Championship 4 round and contending for a Cup Series championship for Stewart-Haas Racing, with the organization set to be rebranded to Haas Factory Team and downsized to a single entry for the 2025 season while Briscoe prepares to transition to Joe Gibbs Racing.
“Honestly, [the race] wasn’t really stressful,” Briscoe said after the race on USA Network. “Even when we had that bad pit stop, we came out 13th or 14th and I felt like I could drive [the car] back up there. Overall, a great night for us. Hopefully, people will start taking us [seriously]. I truthfully feel like we can battle for the championship, so hopefully, tonight proved that. [I] Hate that we had to dig ourselves out of a hole after Atlanta, but hopefully, we can go on to Kansas and start this next round strong. I feel like we can beat anybody on any given day when we put it together from start to finish.”
After initially being placed under a microscope with back-to-back finishes outside the top 20 that nearly had his championship hopes of the 2024 season diminished, Denny Hamlin responded by finishing fourth at Bristol and racing his way into the Round of 12 by 15 points.
Taking the green flag from eighth place and with a six-point deficit to start the Bristol event, Hamlin took care of business for the first half of the event by racking up a total of 13 stage points with finishes of eighth and third, respectively, during the first two rounds.
Restarting inside the top-five mark at the start of the final stage period with 240 laps remaining, Hamlin kept his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota racing towards the front like he had been throughout the first half of the event. Despite being overtaken by his 23XI Racing competitor Bubba Wallace for third place in the closing laps, Hamlin would retain a fourth place on the track as he leaped his way back inside the top-12 cutline and maintained his title hopes with an automatic pass to the Round of 12.
With his accomplishment, Hamlin, who is in his 19th consecutive season in the Cup Series level, transferred into the Round of 12 for the 10th time in his career. In a season where he notched three regular-season victories, he now sets his sights forward and in pursuit of a first elusive Cup Series championship.
“My aspiration was to win [the race],” Hamlin said. “It looked like [Larson] was better than all of us. Solid car. I thought we were really good towards the middle stages and then there at the end, [I] just got too loose and couldn’t hang on to what we had there. Overall, top-five day. Good stage points. Kind of in the mix. Just not really as good as what we’ve been here in the last couple of times, but overall, thank this whole FedEx Toyota team for giving me something I can move on with. It’s all offense from this point forward.”
Lastly, Daniel Suarez was left feeling like a sole survivor after utilizing a 36-point advantage he had before Bristol to transfer his way into the Round of 12 by a mere 11 points amid a struggling event that was capped off with a 30th-place run.
Suarez, who finished second and 13th, respectively, throughout the Round of 16’s first two events, rolled off the starting grid in 35th place and proceeded to spend the first half of the event both inside and outside of the top-30 mark on the track. By then, he was lapped twice by the leader Larson and was unable to recover to score any stage points during the event’s two stage periods, but he remained within contention of claiming a final berth into the Round of 12.
Despite cycling his way back to gain one of his lost laps earlier, Suarez would fall four laps behind Larson. During the closing laps, however, he battled Ty Gibbs, who was trying to overthrow Suarez in the Playoff standings and prevented him from overtaking him as Gibbs needed more spots from the top-10 mark to gain more points on Suarez. With Gibbs fading in the closing laps and eventually dropping to 15th place when the checkered flag flew, Suarez, who dropped to 31st place and was flirting between being scored outside and inside the Playoff cutline, was able to remain inside the cutline.
With the battle for his title hopes continuing into the Round of 12, Suarez, who also transferred as high as into the Round of 12 during his first Playoff run in 2022, expressed his relief on capping off his long weekend and event with a griding duel to fend off Ty Gibbs for a Playoff transfer spot. He also emphasized and recognized the strong Playoff start generated by him and his No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet team that enabled them to not lose any additional points.
“[Tonight] was a struggle,” Suarez said. “Since yesterday when we unloaded the car for first practice, we just didn’t have the speed. With the short amount of practice, qualifying and going through the race, if you don’t have the speed out of the trailer, it’s very, very difficult to bring [the car] back to speed. We made it better, but it wasn’t good enough. We were running 30th, 28th, 32nd all night long and that was all we had. Luckily, we had a great [run at] Atlanta, decent [finish] at Watkins Glen after a broken wheel. We were able to build a [points] cushion and we definitely used every single point out of that cushion. I can only control so much. I can only control what the No. 99 can do and everything else is out of my hands. I wasn’t fast enough to run away from [Gibbs], so I had to play games to be able to affect him as much as possible in a clean way. Luckily, it worked out good. We have to relax a little bit and focus on the next round.”
With the Round of 16 in the rearview mirror, Chase Briscoe, Denny Hamlin and Daniel Suarez join Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, William Byron and Joey Logano as 12 competitors to square off against one another throughout the Playoff’s Round of 12 as all continue their pursuit for the 2024 Cup Series championship.
The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff’s Round of 12 is scheduled to commence next Sunday, September 29, at Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400 which will air at 3 p.m. ET on USA Network.
