TOYOTA RACING – Chase Briscoe
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
TALLADEGA, Ala. (October 24, 2026) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe was made available to the media on Saturday after willing the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.
This is Chase Briscoe’s first pole of the year, and fourth consecutive top-four start. It is his 10th career pole, and first at Talladega Superspeedway. Briscoe is also the reigning fall Talladega race winner.
CHASE BRISCOE, No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Can you take us through your qualifying lap?
“The lap, for my standpoint, was relatively smooth, I guess, outside of just bouncing around. So yeah, just tried to, I mean, as cliche as it sound, just tried to push my foot as hard as I could on the pedal, like my son (Brooks) always tells me, just with how much we’re bouncing, sometimes you can come up off of wide open. So yeah, I just tried to literally push the thing through the floorboard, and I don’t know if that even made a difference, but in my head, it was doing something. So, yeah, obviously I have a great starting spot tomorrow for our Bass Pro Shops Toyota, but who knows what to expect with just the handling and obviously that fuel first run, it’s going to be all about fuel savings. We will probably have the blinker on pretty early trying to not have the lead, but, yeah, we’re going to see how it plays out.”
How much of an advantage is it to win at pole at Talladega?
“I mean, definitely, from a pride standpoint, there’s a lot that goes into just all the little, tiny details that add up. I mean, it’s literally thousandths, probably, but you stack enough of those together, just the pride, I think that comes along with that from the guys goes a long way and the confidence and from a racing standpoint, it’s hard to say. I mean, if you have a yellow flag pit stop, having that first pit stall is obviously an advantage, but if it’s a green flag pit stop, it’s a little bit of a disadvantage. So, I don’t know, it goes both ways. I guess with the package, nobody knowing what to expect, maybe being out front, if there’s a wreck early, maybe save you from that. But, yeah, I don’t know. There are definitely pros and cons of it. It does show that we have a fast car. So, if it’s typically if it’s fast by itself, it’s normally fast in the draft too. So hopefully, that’ll be good for us tomorrow.”
That is fastest Talladega pole run in the Next Gen car. Did it feel that fast in the car?
“I don’t know if my time was actually better in the second round, but I felt slower the second run than the first run, just from like an engine tone standpoint, but it’s so hard inside the car. Like that first round, obviously, we were really, really good, but inside the car, very well could have been 27th. I had no idea what it was going to be. Then, obviously when the time came up, I knew it was good. Yeah, inside the car, it’s honestly pretty hard to tell. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that it was three miles an hour faster. In the pack, I think, it’ll feel faster though.”
Does it make you more hopeful for tomorrow that you may be able to form a third lane?
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was kind of wild to me after Daytona, there was a couple guys that felt like the package was no different, and I felt like it was drastically different, just how it drove, just, you were way more on the edge at all times. Historically, that race at Daytona is like the easiest race we have of the year from the balance standpoint. This place could be absolutely out of control. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out tomorrow.”
Are you surprised with how long it took to get you the first pole of the year?
“A little bit, yeah, because last year, truthfully, it felt easy. Like everywhere we would go, if we weren’t on the pole, we were in the top two or three. This year, yeah, we just haven’t been as strong from a qualifying standpoint. It’s kind of flipped. Last year I thought we were just incredible on the mile and a half tracks in qualifying. In the race, we wouldn’t be quite as good. It was kind of the opposite on short tracks. We wouldn’t qualify very good. Well, this year, we’ve been really good, honestly, short track qualifying. Haven’t had the poles, but mile and a half wise, we’ve not been near as good in qualifying, but we’ve been really good in the races. So, yeah, going into this into this season, you would have told me it would have taken until race 33 to get a pole, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But this sport is just extremely hard. That was a place where we just haven’t been as strong as what we were last year. So yeah, I just have to continue to get better.”
Are you just focusing on your team with as many Joe Gibbs Racing teams competing for the championship?
“I mean, truthfully, I haven’t really had like an actual conversation or anything, but I think just everywhere we go, we typically are racing for the win and obviously it’s different this time of the year just for the championship and things on the line. But yeah, I think it’s kind of unspoken. Coach (Joe Gibbs, owner, Joe Gibbs Racing) knows that we’re all going to be in it for ourselves at the end of the day. I want the 19 to win the championship. Denny (Hamlin) wants the 11 win the championship. Christopher (Bell) wants the 20. We all know that at the end of the day that we’re all going to do what’s best for ourselves, but also I do think we all do a really good job of trying to help each other out when we can. At the end of the race, it might be hard to do that sometimes, but I do think we’re all still very aware of what’s going on and we don’t want to cost both of us a shot at it or all three of us a shot at it. So you’re just aware of that the whole time.”
How do you feel like you have to execute this weekend with the other drivers around you being really good at Martinsville?
“Yeah, I think it’s massive. I mean, we’re at the point of the season now, especially with how tight the points are that, I mean, literally one point can be the difference in you being the champion or not. I think when you look at this weekend, this is the one that’s the most wide open of what can happen where Martinsville and Homestead are just a little bit more traditional. But yeah, out of the all the tracks in the Chase, I would say Martinsville, for us on the 19 group, has been the biggest struggles. Yeah, I mean, every point we can get, you know, this week is extremely important. Just like I said, it’s going to come down to one point probably. So, yeah, execution’s going to be at extremely high level this weekend. Just the green flag pit stops, everything else that comes along with it. You just don’t want to make a mistake and take yourself out of it. It’s one thing if you get caught up in the crash. I mean, hopefully that doesn’t happen, but you, as a driver, don’t want to, to be the reason that you get a speeding penalty or something like that.”
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