Compared to his four-year term with the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, Chase Briscoe’s maiden season with Joe Gibbs Racing has been a night-and-day transformation. With a win already in the bag at Pocono, seven top-five finishes and nine top-10s in the first 20 starts, Briscoe has hit the ground running in 2025. He credits the turnaround to the support of his team and team owner Joe Gibbs.
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Stacked against his 2024 record (two top-fives and six top-10s by the same week) the shift in momentum is impossible to ignore. That’s why Briscoe didn’t shy away from comparing the vastly different worlds of SHR and JGR, taking what looked like a veiled shot at former bosses Tony Stewart and Gene Haas. The contrast, he suggested, begins at the top and trickles down to performance.
Fresh off a career-best Sonoma result, finishing second, Briscoe opened up on the Rubbin’ Is Racing podcast, calling the shift to JGR a way bigger adjustment than he ever expected. He accentuated the gap in operational standards, noting that JGR races at a level SHR never reached, from expectations to structure.
Briscoe highlighted one telling difference: the presence of quarterly review meetings at JGR, where performance is dissected and progress is measured in wins, not mere participation. At SHR, he admitted, finishing in the top-10 was also a cause for celebration. At JGR, that bar doesn’t even move the needle.
He went on to emphasize the impact of leadership, saying, “And then even just having the boss around, like Coach (Joe Gibbs) is in every meeting. He’s at the racetrack every single weekend. And obviously Tony (Stewart) has a ton going on, right?
“Like he’s doing all these other things. And then Gene (Haas) also, I mean, he’s running this huge organization. So, they just weren’t able to be there all the time because it wasn’t their full-time job.”
Briscoe added, “Where with Coach, that is his full-time job. He’s just trying to make Joe Gibbs Racing as successful as it can be. So even just having the boss there and having somebody that’s going to hold you accountable on Monday if you run bad, all those things have just made it a way bigger adjustment than I expected, and then obviously the cars drive way different too.”
Briscoe’s resurgence draws parallels to Martin Truex Jr.’s penultimate season, when the veteran bagged three wins by the 20-week mark and wrapped up the year in 11th. For Briscoe, who finished last year with three top-fives and nine top-10s en route to 14th overall, the path now looks set for another step forward.
