After Stewart-Haas Racing got disbanded last season, Chase Briscoe was at the top of everyone’s list to scoop up from that team. The driver idolized Tony Stewart and gave SHR their final win as a team during the regular season finale at Darlington. Since then, the scenery has changed for the better for Briscoe. He moved to Joe Gibbs Racing to join his childhood best friend, Christopher Bell, who even accidentally leaked his announcement!
Briscoe’s 2025 season was off to a blistering start, winning JGR the pole for the Daytona 500! However, things have tapered off since that very moment. They were almost disqualified at the season opener, but a successful appeal saved them from a 100-point hole. Nonetheless, Briscoe has had his struggles. A loose tire in Las Vegas saw heavy penalties to his crew, and a 17th-place finish there marked his fourth consecutive race outside the top 10 since Daytona. The growing pains were real, but now, Briscoe is well over them.
At Kansas, Briscoe drove hard and stayed competitive, notching up a fighting fourth-place finish. He took this momentum to the Coca-Cola 600, where he took the pole for only the second time this season and finished third! Now, Briscoe enters Nashville and secured his second consecutive pole. While he was in a jovial mood about starting up top, he let the media know just how happy he was to get out of a sticky situation at Stewart-Haas Racing, and how much better JGR has been, despite his initial struggles.
Chase Briscoe calls out SHR’s struggles after pole win
The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver edged out teammate Denny Hamlin by a mere 0.049 seconds, marking his second pole of the season and setting the stage for a strong run at a track where car performance is everything. However, Briscoe, a fifth-year Cup Series driver, has a horrific record at Nashville. Before 2025, Briscoe never qualified higher than 16th (2021) and never finished higher than 21st (2024) at the concrete oval, with three finishes outside the top-30! In light of this pole-winning turnaround, Briscoe highlighted what he was lacking during his four years under Tony Stewart’s tutelage.
In a pre-race interview on May 31, Chase Briscoe didn’t mince words. “Truthfully this place is one of those places where your car is so important, just from a car capability, and the past year like truthfully my car’s not been pretty good, it’s just on top of the racetrack not doing what you want it to do, and I mean I say it all the time Harvick used to always talks about how you can’t drive a slow car fast, and I came here today and the first lap practice was the best driving car I’ve ever had in my life here, the thing just drives better, has more grip, turns better, goes faster, it makes my job just way easier.”
Briscoe’s nod to Kevin Harvick’s wisdom about not being able to drive a slow car fast hits home, especially given his own experiences at Stewart-Haas Racing, where the equipment often held him back. Last season at SHR, Briscoe had a tough go of it, averaging an 18.81 finish across 36 races in 2024, with just one win at Darlington, three top-5s, and nine top-10s. The No. 14 Ford Mustang he drove often left him fighting an uphill battle, especially at tracks like Nashville, where he noted the car’s limitations meant you couldn’t make up much ground on a track where position is everything.
“At SHR we just struggled really really bad here, and this is one of the tracks I feel like you just can’t really get a whole lot more out of it, like just whatever it is, it’s what it is, and you might be able to pick up a couple of positions, but you’re not gonna go from a 25th place car, all of a sudden leading the race, so yea it all comes down to car at this level to a certain extent,” Chase said.
Nashville, being a concrete oval, sees very little tire wear, making the race heavily reliant on fuel strategy and raw speed, and Stewart-Haas Racing lacked the latter. Briscoe often started in the back half of the field and was never able to make his way up front too often, leading just 5 laps at Nashville in his Cup career. This just highlights how much of a downfall SHR was on in its last few years, and why Briscoe is cherishing his move to a ‘big-three’ team.
Chase Briscoe leads the Cup field to green tonight at Nashville (7:19p ET green flag on Prime). Why he feels his pole-winning car will remain good throughout the race. pic.twitter.com/YAy5lJvSE2
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 1, 2025
Tony Stewart shines in NHRA
While Chase Briscoe’s comments paint a tough picture of his time at Stewart-Haas Racing, the team’s co-owner, Tony Stewart, has been finding his own success on a different kind of racetrack, tearing it up in the NHRA Top Fuel ranks. During this weekend, on June 1 at the New England Nationals in Epping, Stewart powered his way to his fifth straight Top Fuel final round, a streak that’s got the drag racing world buzzing.
He faced off against Brittany Force in a thrilling showdown, getting off the line ahead of her with a quicker reaction time, but Force’s blistering run of 340.39 mph in 3.694 seconds proved too much, as she edged him out to take the win, tying Shirley Muldowney as the winningest woman in nitro history with her latest triumph.
Even though Stewart came up just short in the final, his performance in Epping extended his points lead in the NHRA Mission Drag Racing Series, cementing his status as a force to be reckoned with in his second full season of Top Fuel racing. Stewart, who traded NASCAR ovals for the straight-line speed of NHRA drag racing, has found a new groove with Tony Stewart Racing, showing the kind of competitive fire that made him a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion.
It’s a bittersweet contrast to Briscoe’s struggles at SHR last year, highlighting how Stewart has shifted his focus to a new challenge, leaving a legacy in NASCAR that Briscoe is now moving past as he builds a brighter future with Stewart’ old team – Joe Gibbs Racing.
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