HISTORIC NIGHT FOR TOYOTA AS BRISCOE WINS AT CHICAGOLAND
Team Toyota Places Seven Cars Inside the Top 10 for the First Time in its Cup Series history
JOLIET, Ill. (July 5, 2026) – Sharp pit strategy from crew chief James Small helped vault Chase Briscoe to the lead with 46 laps to go and he was able to hold off his hard charging Toyota teammate Christopher Bell to win the NASCAR Cup Series return to Chicagoland Speedway Sunday evening.
The finish turned out to be a historic night for Toyota, as the manufacturer placed seven cars inside the top 10 for the first time in its history. Prior to Sunday, Toyota has had six drivers finish inside the top-10 in a Cup Series race eight times — Phoenix (03/2026), St. Louis (09/2025) Darlington (08/2025), Kansas (05/2022), Watkins Glen (08/2017), Pocono (07/2017), Charlotte (10/2012), Dover (09/2012).
Briscoe’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Bell and Denny Hamlin, made it a 1-2-3 finish for JGR, marking the eighth time the team has brought home a 1-2-3 finish and the second time this year, with Hamlin, Bell and Briscoe notching a 1-2-3 finish a little over a month ago at Nasvhille Superspeedway.
The rest of Team Toyota who joined the JGR trio inside the top 10 included Bubba Wallace (sixth), Ty Gibbs (eighth), Corey Heim (ninth) and Riley Herbst (10th).
In the In-Season Tournament, Briscoe, Hamlin and Bell advanced to the third-round next week at Atlanta Motor Speedway to represent Team Toyota.
TOYOTA RACING Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Chicagoland Speedway
Race 19 of 36 – 400 miles, 267 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, CHASE BRISCOE
2nd, CHRISTOPHER BELL
3rd, DENNY HAMLIN
6th, BUBBA WALLACE
8th, TY GIBBS
9th, COREY HEIM
10th, RILEY HERBST
15th, ERIK JONES
23rd, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
36th, TYLER REDDICK
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Bank Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
What’s the emotion of finally breaking through for your first win of the season?
“What an unbelievable weekend. I feel so American winning in the Bass Pro Shops Red, White, and Blue Toyota Fourth of July weekend, 250 years. Just an unbelievable racecar. James (Small, Crew Chief) and team did a great job. Honestly, I did not see this coming, I kind of felt like I was struggling in practice and qualifying. James and the group did a great job and it’s just so cool to get this paint scheme back in victory lane. Appreciate all our partners, Free Bird, Zett, Wix, Tracker Boats, True Timber Camo, Mobil 1, just appreciate everyone that makes this happen. What a cool weekend to win a NASCAR race.”
What is it about your crew chief James Small that has helped you the last couple of years?
“James and I are about the two most polar opposite people in the world. He just stays on me and makes me be perfect every single lap and does just such a great job of keeping me honest. He told me if I win today he would get me some chocolate, so I’m pretty fired up about that.”
How were you able to hold off your teammate Christopher Bell on two lap fresher tires?
“I kind of got lucky with the lapped cars. I was struggling really bad. Christopher was certainly coming. Of all the people I could be racing I knew Christopher was going to be clean with me. Just great to have JGR running 1-2-3. Just a really fun race, it’s about as fun of a race as you can get with the cat and mouse game where we were slipping and sliding around hopefully you could see that on TV. Thank you guys and it’s exciting to be back at Chicagoland and hopefully we can be back.”
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 SAIA Freight + Logistics Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
Coming through the field like you guys did, what do you take from this, and what more did you need in those final few laps?
“I just need to replay that last run, the last two runs, whatever it was, stage 3, whenever it went green. I was really struggling with the handling of my car early on in the race, and I still had a lot of pace, so I keyed up on the radio and said, hey, if we get this thing driving good, we’re going to have a shot at it. They made a great adjustment and got the car driving great the last run, but I was a straight away plus behind, it seemed like. I was soft on my green flag entry for sure, which gave up a little bit of time. So just need to go back and study that green flag cycle on how I lost so much time to the first couple of cars. It was a great day. First race with Saia on our Toyota Camry. We almost went to victory lane. Yeah, Toyotas are fast. It seems like a monkey can drive them, so it’s just disappointing when you get beat by another monkey.”
What was the difference on the last lap trying to get in a position to pass Chase?
“He blocked me and did really good and took my line away and that was that. Needed to have a little bit more time and it would have been nice to have some open track, but it just didn’t work out with the lapped traffic in there. I think we had a good charge and made a good race out of it.”
How difficult is it to manage lapped traffic when you are trying to run someone down for the win?
“It’s just difficult, you have to keep air on your car. I’m sure that he lost a lot of time in lapped traffic and I lost a lot of time in lapped traffic. It works both ways, I just didn’t get there in time.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Progressive Insurance Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
How would you assess the overall day?
“I thought I was in control early on, even though I wasn’t leading. I felt in control and probably got a little lazy on some restarts and things like that. Just taking for granted that I’ll just go up and there get it. Briscoe and Bell, they got their cars really good there the second half of the race, and (William) Byron as well. You know, we just lost the balance there in stage 3. I got loose, lost ground, lost a couple of seconds. Then we went long and come out nine seconds back, and I thought it was going to be really close to get there, but I just pushed it too far into the wall there with a few laps to go and had to settle for third.”
You had three of your 23XI guys in the top 10, including Corey Heim. What do you think about that for the 23XI organization?
“Great day for Riley as well in the top 10. Bubba was pretty strong there, when he was out front and leading and so that’s a good day for them. Obviously the 45 just continues to bleed out here with some bad luck stuff going on or some mechanicals. Once we get it figured out we’ll race it out.”
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 over 50 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.
For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.
