Toyota GAZOO Racing – Chase Briscoe
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
NASHVILLE (May 31, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe was made available to the media on Saturday after winning the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville Superspeedway.
This is Chase Briscoe’s second straight pole and third this season (Daytona, Charlotte).
With Briscoe, William Sawalich (Xfinity) and Corey Heim (Trucks – set by the rule book) on the poles for this weekend’s races – Toyota has swept the NASCAR national series pole positions for the second straight weekend.
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
What does it mean to win two straight poles?
“I guess it was a good enough lap. Alan Cavanna (PRN) was asking me right before I went out what it takes to run a perfect lap here and I said I don’t know. I think the best I’ve ever qualified here was like 20th. It was a surprise. I felt like it was a good lap. I definitely felt like I left a little bit on the table, but I felt like it was a smooth, clean lap and I felt like for sure it was going to be a top-five lap, but it was a surprise that it was as fast as it was. It is nice to start on the pole two weeks in a row. Hopefully, we can do better tomorrow than we did last week, but certainly, this track is very, very track position dependent, so to able to start on the pole is going to be a huge advantage for us. Hopefully, we can hold that advantage.”
Where did you fish with Kevin VanDam?
“We actually went to Luke Bryan’s place which was ridiculous. Just to fish with Kevin VanDam – I was telling people, it is like playing catch with Tom Brady. He is literally the greatest of all time, so to be able to go fish with Kevin, and obviously with the Bass Pro connection, it is just super, super cool. We probably caught 60 to 70 something fish, and a couple seven pounders, which is a personal best for me. It was just a super, super cool day and hopefully, can fish with Kevin a lot more. I told him that hopefully I didn’t use up all of my luck on Thursday and Friday fishing with him, but so far it seems to still be there.”
Was it all bass?
“Yeah, all bass.”
How did you feel about your car in race trim?
“I thought my car in race trim could have been better for sure. I knew that I was behind the 9 (Chase Elliott), the 11 (Denny Hamlin), the 45 (Tyler Reddick) – the 11 was definitely better than me, especially on the long runs specifically, but I thought my car was a top-10 car. I didn’t think it was good enough to win, per say, if we had to race today. We definitely need to make some adjustments on it, but it was at least in the mix. I needed to be a little bit better to be what the 11 was, or even the 12 (Ryan Blaney) or the 45. Hopefully, that track position will help that, and also, we will make our car better. It has been a place that hasn’t been great to me. I kind of just don’t fully know what I need. I’m always searching here, and talking to Denny after practice, I felt like I learned some stuff, so hopefully I can put it all together tomorrow.”
Are the temperatures the reason for the new track record?
“Every year the teams get better, so that is one reason right? I don’t know if the left side tires or the tires were any different. I have no idea, but I definitely think the weather being a little cooler – I don’t think I ever remember qualifying this late here either, so I don’t know if that has something to do with it. I think a lot of it is just the teams get better and better and understand what they need to do to make their cars faster. I don’t know how much the track record was before, but it certainly seems like almost everywhere we go anymore we are a little bit faster between car setup and even the engines, right? They are constantly gaining a couple horsepower every time we go back. It is a multitude of things.”
What is the difficulty of Nashville?
“Truthfully, this is one of those places that your car is so important just from a car capability. In the past here, truthfully, my car just hasn’t been very good. It is just on top of the race track, not doing what you want it to do. I say it all of the time, but (Kevin) Harvick used to say – you can’t drive a slow car, fast. I came here today, and my first lap of practice – it was the best driving car of my life here. It just drives better, has better grip, turns better, goes faster. It just makes my job way easier. Honestly, I think that is a lot of it. For whatever reason, at SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing), we just struggled really, really bad here. This is one of those tracks that I feel like you can’t really get a lot more out of it. Whatever it is, is what it is. You might be able to pick up a couple of positions, but you are not going to go from a 25th place car to leading the race. Just comes all down to car at this level, to a certain extent. I’m in, arguably, one of the best cars every single week, so it makes my job a lot easier.”
What do you do tonight to make this car better tomorrow?
“I will just tell him, typically, where I feel like I’m losing time. A lot of the time, where I think I’m losing time, is not where I’m losing the most time, and they are like, well I think we need to look at this or work on that. In between James (Small, crew chief) and the engineers – we will all look at data and try to understand, okay, where is the best car better than us at and what do we need to do different to make our car better there. James and the 19 team have a pretty good understanding kind of every week of what they need to do from Saturday to Sunday, obviously, that changes based on where you qualify and your track position. Last week was a great example, we set up our car to be up front all day long, and when you have a bad pit stop, it puts you behind. Your car doesn’t drive very good back there, so after last week, I don’t know if we will go full blown for clean air setup but definitely leave it up to James and the engineers. I’ll give them kind of my input on the car, but they have been doing it way longer than I have an understanding on what I need.”
How does having a better car impact your preparation each week?
“One thing is the team itself is so much better prepared and understanding going into the weekend, like here’s the things you need to look at. It has simplified my life a lot. I’m not looking at 100 different things. It is here is 10 things you need to focus on going into this week. This is how the car should drive this week. This is the perfect way to drive it, and then for me, I can go look at what the other cars are doing, where in the past, I can go look at the best cars, but my car is not going to do that, so it is kind of irrelevant. Where now, I think the biggest thing for me these last couple of weeks, is finally just the understanding on how hard I can push this car and what is it absolutely able to take. The first 10 races of the year, I would always underdrive in qualifying because the car’s capability is so much more than anything I’ve ever ran, where now I’m finally getting to the other side of it, where – even today, I didn’t feel like I got 100 percent potential out of it, but I felt like I was at least at 95 percent, where earlier in the year, I felt like I was at 80 percent. It is just all of those things coming together where the results have been way, way better.”
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.
Toyota directly employs nearly 64,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of nearly 49 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In spring 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina will begin to manufacture automotive batteries for electrified vehicles. With more electrified vehicles on the road than any other automaker, Toyota currently offers 31 electrified options.
For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.
