TOYOTA RACING – Chase Briscoe
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (September 2, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe was made available to the media on Wednesday as part of NASCAR Chase Media Day at the Charlotte Convention Center.
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
How are you guys feeling about the way you performed throughout the regular season. Is there expectation or pressure on you guys to seal the deal?
“I wouldn’t say there’s like any higher expectation. I think the expectations are already there internally of our stuff is really, really good right now and it’s never guaranteed tomorrow. So even these next 10 weeks, it’s not guaranteed by any means. But a year from now, who knows what it’ll look like. You want to strike while the iron’s hot. And for us, I think we all know that we’re all racing each other kind of for the championship. I mean, there’s five of us right in the top six. I definitely would say that pressure’s there, but I don’t think the expectation’s been put on us. We just all kind of internally know it.”
What about going to Darlington has been so favorable to you?
“I definitely am excited to start with the Southern 500. You know, that’s something that we won’t get to do next year, and that’s for me at least, with just how the tracks line out in this year’s Chase. If you just look statistically this year the tracks are way better for me than what they would be next year. Excited though to start at the Southern 500. I don’t feel like there’s really a weakness out of any of the Chase races for us. To hopefully go to, Darlington, the goal is a 76-point day, win both stages, win the race and have the fastest lap. And we were able to do that last year, so there’s no reason why we can’t do it again. If we do that the 45 points to Denny, even if he runs second in all the stages, it’s cut in half already. That’s the goal and hopefully we can do that.”
What do you think suits your driving style better, 10 straight races like this for the title championship, or a bunch of three races bunched together with elimination and restarts?
“I think for us, the 10-race thing. Just our consistency as a manufacturer for one, like we have all really good racetracks for us. I like the 10-race thing. You still have to be really, really good over the course of 10 weeks, but I do like the 10-week thing a little bit more. You could be the best points guy and you have one bad race in that three race deal and you could be in really bad, bad territory really, really quickly, where a 10 race you can make up for it a little bit better, I feel like. So yeah, I definitely am a fan of the 10-race thing.”
Have you looked back at how the Chase worked or how it kind of unfolded in 2004 to 2013 to see if there’s anything at all to learn from that going around?
“Not really. Because back then, I don’t think it awarded more points to win either. So it’s just so different now. I mean, you think about Tony, right? Like in 2011, if you could win five out of the 10 races this year, I mean, you’re going to clinch before Homestead. You’re going to clinch at four Homestead as long as you don’t DNF the other four races up till Homestead. So yeah, it’s different now with the added points for winning. And even the stages, it just changes a lot, I feel like from what it used to be. Maybe there’s something to learn from the consistency standpoint, but it’s so different I feel like now with the winning bonus and in the stages.”
How about the mentality where you don’t have kind of like the pressure relief of if you win a race in a round, you advance automatically?
“It definitely changes I think because I was a perfect example of that last year where twice really you win, you win Darlington and now the next two weeks really didn’t mean anything. If you could win, great, you would just add more points for the next couple rounds. But if you didn’t win, there was just no pressure. If you were running 15th that day, it’s like you’re just kind of out there cruising. And then same with when you won Talladega, the next week you didn’t care about Martinsville. You were just all in on Phoenix. Now it makes it every single race matters. Every single day matters from your prep work. I think that’s way better. I’m looking forward to that part of it and definitely you’re not going to have a single weekend off. It’s going to be absolutely cutthroat every stage. Where in the past, if you won a race, even stages truthfully didn’t really matter. So, it’ll be way different now.
So how do you mentally prepare yourself?
“I think it’s definitely going to be different. I think we’re in a good spot on our team at least just because we’ve really been treating these last five to six weeks as the Chase because we were trying to get to that fifth place in points. That was everything for us. We are kind of in that Chase mindset a little bit already of, we’ve been points racing super, super heavily where, the guy like Denny for example, he’s not really been point racing at all. I feel good about where we’re at, but it is going to be extremely pressure packed every single weekend, but even every weekend you’re still trying to win. So the pressure’s still there, it’s just the consistency piece has to be way higher now.”
In the original Chase you had Chicagoland lead off at a time, then half the Chase was mile and a halve tracks, was that a good predictor of how guys will do? Is Darlington a outlier to that?
“I don’t think you can take a whole lot from Darlington. I mean, the points are obviously going to carry over, but if somebody has a bad run at Darlington, obviously it sets them back points wise, but I don’t think that’s going to dictate how they run the rest of the Chase because it is such a unique racetrack and really Gateway is kind of that same way. There’s nothing else like Gateway. I mean, Phoenix a little bit, but there’s nothing like Gateway or nothing like Darlington that would relate to any of the mile and a halves that we go to. I don’t think there’s a whole lot you can take away from really the first two weeks. After that I think you’re going to really have an idea of who’s going to be there and picking up the pace.”
What does Talladega mean being so late in the Chase with three races to go in the season, as opposed to where it was in the past?
“Talladega is going to be that one where that’s where everything’s going to change. There’s just so many points that can be lost there. You know, you really don’t have a mulligan in the Chase, but if you’re going to use one, it’s going to have to be at Talladega, and that’s just where it makes it the other nine weeks so hard because if you have a bad race at one of those other nine, you have to go to Talladega and have a good solid day, and that’s where the points are really going to get flipped upside down. It will be really interesting just to kind of see how Talladega plays out because that’s going to be where the biggest swings happen in the points. The other races are going to be pretty traditional, I feel like.”
How much does this year feel like copy and paste from last year? Your stats wise pretty similar and the last 10 laps year were so great for you and your team.
“I feel like they feel completely opposite truthfully. The stats at the end of the day look very, very similar, but I feel like the two years could not feel any more different. Just from a standpoint of where we’re at as a team and this year our results look the same but we’ve been way faster this year every single weekend, where last year was a little more sporadic I felt like. So yeah, it definitely feels way different this year than what it did last year.”
Does your opportunity to win the championship feel better than this year than maybe last year?
“Yeah, I think so. Last year up until the Chase we weren’t really that strong dominant team. Once the playoff started, we were arguably the one of the best teams. So yeah, last year, you know, when we started when we did this last year, I felt good about it, but I didn’t really know what our true potential was. Where now I feel like we are more than capable of going and winning the championship. It definitely feels different from that standpoint. Like just internally, I would say myself, James (Small, crew chief), the entire team, we feel way better about this year than we did last year just because we kind of know what to expect and we also know what the expectation is now for ourselves just because we kind of do it week in, week out.”
The expectation of like knowing what to expect, even though the format is different, was that a big takeaway from last year of getting that under your belt of having gone all the way?
“I think so. I think especially if you get down to Homestead very much could be a who finishes better in the race. Like it could come down to that between two or three or even four guys. So I think just experiencing the highest pressure that you’re ever going to get to experience in the sport, you could have that game seven moment but you got it every single year with the playoffs, where just getting to experience that one time, I think will hopefully pay dividends in this format.”
What was it like to have Tom Cruise come out and talk to you guys and hang out and be cultural for a little bit at Daytona?
“It was really neat. It actually started earlier in that day. We were doing our driver council meeting and that kind of door opened off to the side and there was like two Suburbans there. All of a sudden, Tom Cruise walked in and none of us knew that was happening, and he’s just sitting there and talked with us for like 20, 25 minutes about his goal of what to do with the movie and how he wants to paint us out to be. And it was really interesting just hearing the parallels between Top Gun and how he feels like Days of Thunder could be. So yeah, it was cool. He was super nice. I thought it was really cool how he went to every single owner basically in the garage and spent time with them and he just felt like one of the guys truthfully. You never know how those, you know, I guess superstars are going to be, and Tom, he could be hanging out in here and just be chilling with us. He was super nice.
Where do you stand on the idea of luck in racing, good or bad?
“I definitely think there’s a level of luck or just circumstance, right? Richmond’s a great example. If you pit and you know you do what’s naturally right from a strategy standpoint, and then somebody spins out and the caution comes out and you’re trapped two or three laps down, like that’s just unlucky or the circumstance or whatever it may be. And, there is a level of things have to go your way in these races. I mean, Darlington this weekend will be the same thing. When you start pitting under green, one thing can happen and you can be the dominant car and you can pit and an unfortunate caution comes out and now your whole day is completely changed. So there is a level of luck for sure. If you want to call it luck or just circumstance or whatever, but there is definitely a level of that.”
Is there an example of something that comes to mind, either good or bad, that you caught something and was like, “That was luck”?
“One that stands out was 2020, I guess it was my rookie year at the Indy Road Course race. I’d ran up front a lot of the day. I’d had a ton of brake issues. We were running 34th and just kind of over it and we pitted, put tires on, and then the caution came out and the whole field had to pit, and now I’m on the front row for the restart. So yeah, that’s one that comes to mind. Even last week at Daytona, I’m running 36th with five to go and was not going to finish fifth in points. Caution comes out and I’m able to start up there and get Christopher (Bell) for fifth. So yeah, there’s a lot of things that happen that end up working out for you and on the other end don’t work out for you. But I would say every driver in the field has had some sort of circumstance like that.”
I know athletes in some stick and ball sports kind of talk about how they can separate the regular season from the postseason. Feels like a new season. There’s a reset. Does it feel that way at all in NASCAR, especially with the new format where there is a points reset?
“I think so. Maybe not for other guys, but for our team just how we started the season, the hole that we dug ourselves in, there was no chance I could ever have gotten to the lead in the regular season points unless I won 10 races. It just wasn’t going to happen. And Denny’s been 200 points ahead of me from week four, just from how our season started. To now only be 45 points behind him, like it’s a huge reset and I’m excited to start on an even playing field.”
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