Chase Briscoe drove his 19 JGR Toyota to victory lane in Chicagoland, and now three of the four JGR drivers have wins this season. 

Of the 19 races completed this season, JGR has an incredible 6 wins across its drivers, and if you add Tyler Reddick’s 5 wins, Toyota cars have taken 11 of the 19 race wins this season. 

Elated with his team’s second top-three lockout this season after Nashville, Joe Gibbs spoke to the press post-race and was asked how he views the Toyota dominance this season, knowing that at some point a falloff is bound to come. 

The JGR owner’s press interaction was uploaded to YouTube by Cup Scene. Joe Gibbs replied, “We know how hard everyone else is working, and today, very easily it could have gone to the 24(Byron). So we know how competitive this is. And one week doesn’t buy you the next week.”

Gibbs admitted that while Toyota is the best-performing car right now, the JGR team knows that other teams are doing everything to come back. He said that there are people in the crew who have seen the downfall as well as the rise, so everyone at JGR knows that this success isn’t everlasting. 

Gibbs said, “Matter of fact, we’ve kind of been telling everybody at our play, ‘Hey, let's work even harder because we know everybody else is working so hard.’ And it’s really hard just to stay up there and keep performing like this, but I think we got great people.” 

The JGR boss added, “I think all four cars right now, I feel real good when we go to the racetrack. I think we’re capable of winning with four cars, and we’ve got great leaders like James. So it just makes it easy for me.”

Gibbs had only words of praise for Chase Briscoe and his crew chief, James Small. The duo has been on a resurgent run.

Chase Briscoe making up for early inconsistency

While Joe Gibbs Racing has four competitive cars, for a while, the 19 Toyota wasn’t as competitive in the hands of Chase Briscoe while the other JGR cars were consistently fighting for big points.

Briscoe’s season didn’t get off to the best start, with a 36th-place finish in Daytona. But he immediately bounced back to take 2nd in Atlanta. This was followed by back-to-back DNFs in COTA and Phoenix. He then took 8th in Vegas, 12th in Darlington, and 14th in Martinsville. 

The 19 JGR driver took 5th in Bristol before finishing 3rd in Kansas, but that was immediately followed by a low 29th in Talladega. By now, the pattern had become clear: Briscoe would perform and then immediately fall off. 

A 23rd place finish in Texas was followed by a 4th place at Watkins Glen, and soon after came another dip with another DNF in Charlotte. 3rd in Nashville, 10th in Michigan and 12th in Pocono were followed by 17th in San Diego, followed by a might Sonoma drive to 2nd before finally winning at Chicagoland. 

It’s important to look at his finishes because at one point, Briscoe was the lowest-ranked JGR driver, but he’s been coming good since the DNF in Charlotte. 

Currently with 7 races to the Chase, Briscoe is 8th in points, having picked up a remarkable 107 points in the last two races alone. Briscoe is currently 26 points ahead of teammate Christopher Bell in 10th. 

Who do you think finishes higher for JGR, Briscoe or Bell? Let us know. 

You can read more on the Daytona Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason