Charlotte Motor Speedway (Concord, N.C.) — Chase Briscoe indicated Saturday that he had to adjust to the Joe Gibbs Racing attitude that winning races is the expectation.
He came from a Stewart-Haas Racing organization, a place where he felt victories were celebrated more.
Now Briscoe is feeling the pressure at an organization that has a history of winning races and championships.
Briscoe made it back-to-back victories — the seventh and eighth of his career — as he won Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a week after winning at Las Vegas.
He did both in dramatic fashion. The one on Sunday came as he held off a charging Christopher Bell by just 0.029 seconds, the second-closest finish in Cup history at the track.
Chase Briscoe’s win at Charlotte gave him wins in back-to-back weeks.
Briscoe has earned six of his eight career wins the last two years since joining JGR.
“When (JGR) signed me (for 2025), I had one career Cup win and there was obviously a ton of question marks about what I guess my potential was. And for (Joe Gibbs) to take a chance on me and to be able to drive this car, it’s just a privilege,” Briscoe said in his post-race news conference.
Here are my takeaways after the sixth race of the 10-race Chase:
1. Larson Hangs Onto Points Lead
Larson maintained his lead in The Chase standings.
Kyle Larson saw his points lead increase by nine points, as he entered Charlotte with a 40-point lead over Denny Hamlin and left 49 up on Hamlin. Briscoe, with the win, is fourth in the standings at 65 points back (he entered at 84 points behind). Bell is 51 points behind (he entered 55 points back).
Larson, the two-time and defending Cup champion, won the opening stage, finished fourth in the second stage and wound up sixth in the race. Five of the top-six finishers were the championship leaders: Ryan Blaney (85 points behind) finished third, followed by non-Chase driver Josh Berry, Hamlin and Larson.
The four remaining races in The Chase are Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville and Homestead.
“Just a good solid day,” Larson said in his USA Sports interview after the race “That’s what we’ve had. I feel like we maximized it.”
2. Hamlin Not Great When Needed
Denny Hamlin didn’t have the day he needed at Charlotte.
Denny Hamlin thought he had a race-winning car for the first 100 laps, but he failed to earn points in the opening stage after one of his crew members fell over the pit road wall when reaching to grab a tire. That is considered a safety violation.
The conventional wisdom had Hamlin, the regular-season champion, winning at least one race by now in The Chase.
Instead, he has just one top-three finish and two top fives.
Hamlin told me and other reporters that his confidence is “so-so” to win his first Cup title.
“We haven’t lit the world on fire by any means, and we’re still hanging around,” Hamlin said. “It’s all we’ve got right now, and obviously, we’ve got to clean a lot of things up to get the best out of our days.
“But when it really counted with race-winning speed today, we just didn’t have it.”
3. Briscoe A Threat?
Could Chase Briscoe be a legitimate threat in The Chase?
Not that people thought Briscoe couldn’t drive, but now that he has two wins, could he be a contender in this Chase? His crew chief, James Small, said that the team could “step on their throats” to win the title.
But that doesn’t always seem to be Briscoe’s mentality.
“He may not show it on the outside, but I know deep down he wants to win as bad as us,” Small said in his post-race news conference. “We’ve been on his ass to make sure that he hates finishing second as much as we do.”
Briscoe said he can go out and have a dominate-the-race mentality.
“The only way you’re going to cut into the gap is by winning races,” he said.
4. Wallace OK After Hard Crash
Bubba Wallace is doing fine after his crash at Charlotte.
Bubba Wallace was OK after a hard crash where Alex Bowman got loose and over-corrected, spinning into Wallace, who then also hit the inside wall.
Wallace joked he still “got nine fingers and nine toes” after the crash, so that he was fine.
“Unfortunately, Alex got loose and we were just a byproduct,” Wallace told me and other reporters after being released from the infield medical center. “No hard feelings.”
4 ½. What’s Next: Phoenix Raceway
Can Kyle get another win at Phoenix next week?
The series heads to Phoenix, which was the site of the championship the last several years before the finale moved to Homestead.
But Phoenix plays a pivotal role in The Chase as a 1-mile flat track.
It has not been a good track for Hendrick Motorsports — even though Larson clinched the title there last year.
It has been a great one for Team Penske. Ryan Blaney won there in March as well as in the season finale in November.
For the Toyota teams, it’s been a solid track. It’s the place where Hamlin last year was cruising on his way to the title until a late caution resulted in pit stops and Hamlin’s four-tire stop put him too far back to rally for the title.
“Phoenix is difficult for us here lately, the last three or four races there,” Larson told me and other reporters after the race. “Hopefully, we can hit on something and be a little bit more competitive.
“And then Talladega can go either way. … You can’t get ahead of yourself.”
WHAT YOU SHOULD READ NEXT
The math has spoken. Winning matters in The Chase.
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