Chase Briscoe suffered yet another disappointing race on Sunday, crashing out of the Straight Talk Wireless 500 in Phoenix after a tire went down in Stage 2 and forced him into the wall. With this, he now has a result of 36th or worse in the opening four races, and he sits 33rd on the points table.
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It’s a step down for Briscoe after 2025, when he began the season in relatively better fashion. He had a fourth-place finish in Daytona and was 27th in the standings after four races.
Speaking to the press after the race, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver expressed his realization that his results needed to begin getting a lot better to have any shot at winning the championship or even making the Chase. Championship winners maybe get two or three terrible results in a season, and Briscoe has already fulfilled that quota.
Briscoe said, “There is no margin for error. We need to win a lot of races… is a bad thing just to get up in it. With the way the Chase is, if we are not top-6 at the end of the regular season, it is almost impossible to win the championship from the mathematical side of what our data shows. That’s the hard part. We are just so down there in points. It is gonna be hard to even get to that.”
Chase Briscoe on the impact of the 750 horsepower (compared to 670hp that they used to have at Phoenix) and being in a hole in the points. @NASCARONFOX pic.twitter.com/tAQM3pXXhX
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) March 8, 2026
Briscoe drives the No. 23 Toyota Camry XSE. His car has been fast and possesses the ability to take him to the front of the grid. But speed and skill alone won’t help him overcome this early deficit. He admitted that it was all about just getting a bit of luck and hoped for better days ahead.
The issue with Briscoe’s car at Phoenix
Before crashing into the wall in Phoenix, Briscoe had reported feeling vibrations from the front of the car. This indicated a wheel issue, but his team inspected the car on video and determined that nothing was wrong with the wheel. But Briscoe continued feeling like the vibration was getting worse. On Lap 132, his tire gave up going to Turn 3, and made him slide sideways.
He hit the wall, unable to steer himself back. While the team tried to repair the car in the garage, it couldn’t do so.
He commented on the accident, “When I had my vibration, I told them that I thought it was in the front end. Just par for the course for how this year started. It was another car that was extremely fast, felt like we were certainly going to be in contention for the win, and just another failure for us.”
Briscoe will look forward to Las Vegas next weekend to try and bounce back.
