Toyota GAZOO Racing – Chase Briscoe
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (February 12, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe was made available to the media on Wednesday prior to the Daytona 500.
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Are there any new things with your new OEM vs what you’ve been used to in the past coming into a superspeedway race?
“Yeah, like, you know, every manufacturer is kind of the same plan, right? The plan is stay together, work together. Try to keep the other manufacturer from getting up front. So, from that standpoint, you know, it’s relatively the same. The drivers are different, just being able to work with those guys. Their techniques and tendencies, how the cars are going to draft will be way different. And then just the number side I think is probably the biggest thing for me. There’s so many Fords this year. And fortunately, there’s a lot of Toyotas as well. That’s something that’s kind of new I think there’s 11 or 12 Toyotas (that could be) in the field, where typically there’s only like six or seven. So, it won’t be as big of adjustment for me just since there’s more Toyotas this year. But I’d say it’s relatively the same. It’s always the same goal, same kind of way of doing it. It’s just the approach; the people you’re doing it with it is a little different.”
Will the higher number of Toyotas in this race influence how you drive the car? How does it help that approach?
“Yeah, I never really felt like I was racing the Toyotas when I was at another manufacturer. It wasn’t really any different. You just knew that when they got together, they were probably going to stick together a little more religiously than the other manufacturers because they had to due to their numbers. But I didn’t feel like (pause), you definitely didn’t race them any different, you just kind of knew that in the back of your mind like if one Toyota made a move, all four or five of them are going probably do it together. From a strategy standpoint, I think probably for the crew chiefs it’s a little bit more just because they could kind of do more with having less people. I don’t know, honestly. I think it’s going be the same for my standpoint. But definitely the characters are different, right? Like, you know Denny (Hamlin) races plate races very different than how Joey Logano does it. So, just learning their tendencies is going to be a little bit different. Honestly, I want to say it was Talladega last year the year before, I got kind of spit out of the Ford pack and had pit with the Toyotas and ran like 60 laps with them, just the Toyotas. So, I feel like I have a little bit of an understanding, so it’s nice to at least have that experience for sure going into this week.”
Is it good to have someone like Christopher Bell on your team to measure yourself by?
“Yeah, I think so. I think Christopher (Bell) honestly is probably the guy I’ve measured myself off of more than anybody in my entire career. We’re a day apart in age. Grew up doing the same type of racing. He raced a lot more growing up than I did. But we come from the exact same background. So, what he’s been able to do on the NASCAR side certainly kind of model my results off of. Judging off somebody else that doesn’t have the same background as me is harder to do. Christopher is as close as it gets to my background with age and everything, experience level. Definitely somebody that I’ll judge myself off of a lot especially now that we’re in the same car.”
How hard is it to go to a new team?
“It’s a lot. I did not think it would be that different, truthfully. I figured it would be pretty simple to just switch, and yeah, I was definitely wrong. There’s just so much more going on. The amount of data to look at; working with James (Small, crew chief, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE). The other day, I was like 15 minutes late for this meeting that we had, and I’m not used to pre-event meetings. We’ve never done those before in my career, so there’s a lot different. Just everything that’s going on and the resources, data, analytics. There’s just so much that, honestly, has really opened my eyes up to this how vastly different is. It’s kind of crazy to think that’s what we’ve raced against my entire Cup career. I’m definitely excited to get going, I told Christopher, ‘you don’t realize how good you’ve had it your entire career. Having all this at your disposal.’ It’s definitely been very eye-opening for sure.”
Anything specific in changing engine manufacturers?
“Yeah, it’s hard to say. So far, here (Daytona), you’re just kind of running wide open and it’s hard to really get a true read, especially not in the draft yet. And then, Bowman Gray (The Clash) was so small, it’s hard to really tell anything. I’m sure there’s going to be differences. You know, every manufacturer kind of has their own little things that make them unique. I’ll be able to have a better read, I would say, once we leave the West Coast swing but there’s going to be things different. For me, I’m going to have to adjust to that, especially being at one manufacturer as I have, there’s going to be things that are way different I’m just going to have to be used to. And I also think there’s things that I can bring to the table, just different perspective. ‘Hey, I think maybe we could try this different,’ or whatever. So yeah, it’s going to take a couple of weeks and then once we get a little more of a baseline, I think I’ll be able to know.”
How important is it to have a member of your previous team come with you to Joe Gibbs Racing?
“I think it’s super important. To have at least one familiar face and you know, even me and him (JD Frey, car chief, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE). I’ve called him sometimes when I leave the shop or we leave at the same time, just talk on the way home like ‘man, it’s crazy like they do it this way or you know maybe we could bring this to the table,’ from what we did. It’s nice to have somebody there that you can just bounce stuff off of. Honestly, and then even for myself, there’s a lot of things that you know are specific to me like cockpit-wise. I don’t know what they were, I don’t know how they did it. Having, JD there, I can go to him and say, ‘hey were my pedals this is much higher than what the other guys ran?’ And he’s like, ‘yeah you know we had to put half-inch spacers, where if we didn’t have somebody like that, we would be lost. It took us three months just to get my seat right. It’s definitely nice to have somebody that’s a familiar face and you know I’ve known JD for almost 10 years now. Nice to kind of have that one staple.”
What’s been the biggest eye-opening thing at Joe Gibbs Racing for you?
“Honestly, the biggest difference is just Coach (Joe Gibbs, owner and founder, Joe Gibbs Racing.) Nothing against Gene (Haas) or Tony (Stewart) but they ran other businesses where like Coach, this is his business. This is what he eats, sleeps and breathes every single day. He’s there every single day. I was even telling my wife that the other day that if we run bad one weekend, it’s going to weird seeing the boss on Monday be like ‘why did we run so bad?’ I’ve just not had that, so that that part’s been the biggest difference. From the top down, how intuitive (he) is. But then, also, the data side I would say has been very eye-opening. They’ve tracked stuff on, I literally told my wife this too, I said like it’s kind of crazy that they picked me because of all the data and analytics that have on me. It’s just nuts like how much in depth they are with the whole field where each guy stacks up from their passing grade, restart grade. All of this stuff that I didn’t think anybody even paid attention to and they definitely have the data for it. It’s been very eye-opening for that.”
What have you found or gained since joining Joe Gibbs Racing?
“For me, I don’t really know where I fit in quite yet. It’s definitely vastly different from what I’m used to. Even from a teammate standpoint too, I had Kevin (Harvick) so that that was a good baseline to judge off of but outside of Kevin, like I’ve always been kind of the higher-tenured driver and having more experience (than my teammates). So now coming into a place where you know Christopher has a year more than me, obviously Ty (Gibbs) has less, and Denny is very similar to Kevin. Being able to see the behind the scenes of what made Kevin so successful, now being able to see what makes Denny and Christopher so successful. Being able to be there like every single day and kind of see behind the scenes has been nice I’m glad I guess if they feel like I’m filling out a void. I feel like in the competition meeting we had, I didn’t really know where my place was yet, right? I didn’t know how much talk, what to talk about so I tried to just kind of model it off Denny, Christopher, and Ty and try to kind of fit that same mold. Truthfully, I think me being there hopefully has made a difference and hopefully we can continue to do that. I know that at least with Christopher like me and him are so close and have known each other for so long, I think it’s just to have somebody’s familiar with instead of a newbie come in. But yeah, hopefully I can just continue to you know elevate the program and you know give insight where I feel like I can make it better and I don’t feel like I’m really that guy to make it better but I do have a very you know unique perspective compared to what they’re used to. I even told Christopher that, ‘you don’t know how good you’ve had it your whole career.’ Like with all the data and the stuff that they have at their disposal. So, for me I think that is where I can you know feel a little bit of a void. I have a different perspective than what all the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) people are used to because I’ve seen it from the other side.”
Do you feel any pressure with this opportunity at JGR?
“Yeah, I don’t feel pressure. I feel like the expectations are high, so just naturally like the pressure is there to perform. That’s the I would say the biggest difference for me is it’s not even pressure it’s just the fact that like you’re expected to run well. There’s no reason you shouldn’t run well. So that part of it is different. I was telling my wife a few weeks ago that this is the first time I’ve ever felt like I could legitimately win a Cup championship. At SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing), I told myself I could, but that was probably not going to happen. Where like here (JGR), I can legitimately see myself getting to Phoenix and being a contender, which I’ve never really felt that way before. From that standpoint, I don’t know if it’s really pressure, it’s just the expectation is now much higher.”
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