Chase Briscoe is fitting like a glove at Joe Gibbs Racing. The No. 19 team is hitting its stride with the 2025 playoffs looming.
Earlier in the week, Briscoe declared Iowa Speedway his favorite race track on the Cup Series schedule. He performed like it throughout the weekend, winning his series-high sixth Busch Light pole award on Saturday in preparation for Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol.
William Byron started alongside Briscoe on the front row and got the jump on the initial green flag. The No. 19 Toyota faded to fifth by the end of the opening stage. But the James Small-led pit crew pulled a heater on pit road during the stage break, gaining four spots and retaking the race lead.
Briscoe dominated the opening portion of Stage 2, leading 81 consecutive laps. Small called his driver to pit road at Lap 154, only to get caught a lap down when Shane van Gisbergen wrecked in Turn 2 to bring out the caution on Lap 171. Briscoe was among 19 drivers to take the wave around to get back on the lead lap, but strategy became paramount with 10 more cautions piling up over the final half of the 350-lap event.
Byron pitted on Lap 206, trying to stretch his fuel tank to the finish. Briscoe pitted for the final time on Lap 224 when the caution flew for his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin looping around in Turns 3 and 4.
With a deluge of strategies playing out, Briscoe continued moving up the scoring pylon and was the highest running car that could surely make it to the end on fuel with the help of 40 caution laps. He was tracking down Byron in the final laps but ultimately finished runner-up as the No. 24 Chevrolet reached the finish.
It was the third time Briscoe finished second in the last month. Dating back to his victory at Pocono Raceway in late June, the No. 19 team has four top-two finishes in the last seven races.
“I thought I was really in the catbird seat there and I just got there and kind of stalled out,” Briscoe told NBC Sports following the race. “I kind of experienced that when I was leading earlier. I caught the back of the field, and same thing; as soon as I got there, I just kind of died.
“For us to end up second was a good recovery. Our day kind of got flipped upside down whenever that caution came out and trapped us and was able to rebound.”
It wasn’t all pleasant for Briscoe. The Indiana native took ownership for tangling with a pair of Toyota teammates on Lap 243 when he bumped Tyler Reddick into Christopher Bell to bring out the ninth caution. Neither driver could recover, with Bell finishing 17th and Reddick taking the checkered flag in 20th.
“That was a really boneheaded move on my part,” Briscoe added. “Got in there and got loose and ruined their day. That’s 100 percent on me.”
With the performance, Briscoe has set a new benchmark in laps led (307) and top 10 finishes (11) for a single season. His 13.7 average finish ranks sixth in the series.
The next goal is winning another race, which would be Briscoe’s first season with two victories.
“We’ve been in position enough, running second like that, you’re going to end up winning some of them,” Briscoe added. “It just hasn’t went our way the last three or four of them, so hopefully next week it’ll be that way.”
The series heads to Watkins Glen International next weekend where Briscoe was the best finishing playoff driver in 2024. Last month at Sonoma Raceway, the No. 19 car was best-in-class to Shane van Gisbergen.