TOYOTA RACING – Chase Briscoe
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
LONG POND, Penn. (June 13, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Pocono Raceway.
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How do you feel coming back to Pocono as the reigning race winner?
“Yeah, looking forward to it. I mean, anytime you can come back to a place where you’ve won before, you just have a different confidence about you. So, yeah, looking forward to it. Obviously felt like last year our stuff was good here and just this has been a really good track for JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) in general, and then you throw in the fact that the Toyotas have been as strong as they are. I definitely feel good about it. Just have to go and execute.”
What are some of the challenges of racing here at Pocono Raceway?
“I think the big thing is you just have to know that your car is not going to be good and at least one of the corners. So, you’re just always trying to figure out what that compromise is of, how much can you give up in one of the corners if you’re getting better in the other two? So, that’s the hard part I feel like about coming here is you can normally make your car better in two of those corners, but it’s going to probably make it even worse than the others. So, you’re just trying to figure out like the gain loss of time and what’s worth it, and then you got to take into account in traffic, what’s your car going to do? Where can you actually set up passes? So that’s the hard part, I feel like about coming here and it changes, year-to-year, the track gets rougher in spots, and the tire can always be different. The track kind of moves around differently. It’s always a challenge when you come here just because there’s so many variables, I feel like, that go into, honestly, just running up front here. Your car’s got to be good, but the strategy piece, like, they’re just a lot that goes into running up front at Pocono. So, hopefully we can do all those things right.”
Did you take a look at Christopher Bell’s car at the shop? Do you ask a lot of questions or do you to see what NASCAR says?
“I went and looked at it Monday, when they were tearing it down. I was just like blown away, at just some of the damage, I guess, in a good way. Like it did what it was supposed to do, right? I’ve been around the Next Gen car for four years now or whatever, and I’ve never seen one look like that. It was just unique to see one, kind of twisted up and do the things that it did. I went and looked at it and then I talked to Christopher (Bell) a lot. Sunday night flew home with him and then Monday and even Tuesday we texted him back and forth. I tried to get him to send me the video of the in-car, but it wouldn’t work, I guess, but yeah, I was definitely curious just because I wanted to see it just in a sense of, I feel like he got out, like relatively unscathed. He has a broken wrist and stuff, but I mean, it could have been really, really bad. So just trying to see if looking at my crash videos and I know what kind of the G’s were in mine, compared to what he had and just trying to see if maybe I need to do something different in my stuff because I feel like to be able to get out of that impact, especially like from a head standpoint, like to not have a concussion, like he’s got something right with his helmet or head rest or whatever. So yeah, I was definitely, you know, curious about it everything.”
How would you compare where you are mentally and pressure wise compared from one year ago?
“From a preparation standpoint, everything, I feel night and day. I know what the car is going to do every weekend, like I feel like our prep work is dialed in. I would say that the pressure, honestly, kind of, it’s a little bit different because last year I felt like I had to, I had to perform to like maintain my job, which I still need to do that, right? But the pressure now is more in a sense of like, man, I haven’t went to Victory Lane this year and last year I was able to win three races and just from a point standpoint. I don’t know, now the expectation is there, where when I came into this weekend last year, like I felt like I could win, but I’d never done it at JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing). It wasn’t necessarily the expectation. So, it’s just, it’s different from that mindset. But the pressure, I feel like, is very similar. I obviously want to race for a championship and as a team, we feel like we need to be top five in points at the end of the regular season to really do that, and so I’m 100 points out right now. So, the pressure from that standpoint is very similar. Just knowing that I have to have a good weekend and just knowing that a win could really be the difference maker in getting to that point.”
What have you learned about that course for next week?
“It is probably, I feel like, the most technical racetrack that I’ve ever ran on in my career. You go to some road courses and, there’s just some corners that don’t really matter, truthfully. Like, they’re pretty standard. Like everybody’s going to be the exact same speed through them. I mean, San Diego, there’s not a single corner that is not like a massive time game or loss that just compounds the next one. Every corner is so technical and each, there’s like just, I was talking to Riley (Herbst) about it on the plane. There’s no flow. Every corner is so opposite of the one before it that it just makes it extremely like there’s just no flowing through sections. So, it just makes each corner, its own individual corner that is so technical and how you have to set it up and what you have to do and some corners are more important to give up the entry. Some are all about making entry because of that flow and the gain time loss of certain parts of the racetrack. So, it is extremely technical, I feel like the most challenging place I’ve ever had to just challenge myself on the SIM, like to just really just dive into data and change how I’m driving completely. Even sometimes using two or three different driving techniques for two or three different corners in a row. It’s a really, really challenging racetrack. If a guy’s not put in the time, I mean, they’re going to get exposed, I feel like when they get there, just because it’s one of those racetracks where if you haven’t prepared and done your due diligence. I mean, obviously the SIM could not be accurate to real life at all, but as of now, it is an extremely challenging racetrack.”
Have you seen what Pocono Raceway has done to honor Kyle Busch?
“I haven’t really got to yet. I came in last night. It was dark and then today I literally just kind of went from here to the bus lot. So yeah, I haven’t really got to see a whole lot yet, but I know on social media, I’ve seen a ton of the stuff that they’ve been doing, whether it’s the start-finish line or I even saw like a mural with the QR code to donate to Bundle of Joy. So, I haven’t got to see that in person yet, but certainly on social media, I’ve seen a lot of the stuff they’ve been doing. I think they’ve done a great job.”
What do you think the most important factor is moving forward, especially after recent success?
“I think definitely from a result standpoint, it’s been challenging. It’s been one of those years where it’s like you either run top-5 or you run 30th on back. There’s really been no in between. From that standpoint, it’s encouraging because we have been able when we execute to run in the top-5. From a speed standpoint, a lot of those times, even when we didn’t run up there, we had the speed and just something would happen and that’s why we wouldn’t finish. So, I think that’s been the thing that we’ve kind of held our hat on is, from a speed standpoint, we’ve been good. It would be one thing if we were just running 25th on back on speed itself, but we’ve had the speed. We just need to get the execution piece and sometimes that’s really hard to do. So hopefully, we can just be a little more consistent with that.”
Where do you feel like the team is in qualifying and how important is to start up front at Pocono?
“Qualifying is definitely important. It’s been kind of a head scratcher, I would say, why we haven’t been able to, you know, get the poles this year. Some of those have been, we just haven’t qualified. There’s been tracks where we’ve rained out qualifying that we were on the pole last year and then other times, we just have been like third to fifth. We’ve still been really fast, just haven’t been able to get the pole where last year, a lot of the time we would get the pole would be by a pretty good margin. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know why we’ve I don’t I don’t feel like we’ve regressed. I feel like a lot of the time, especially normally our teammates are the ones getting the pole, and they’ve just gotten better. So, yeah, I don’t know why that is, but hopefully today, we can get the pole because it does make a difference here from a pit road standpoint, but certainly a track position standpoint. So, yeah, it’s been bothering me that we haven’t gotten any poles at this point.”
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