Chase Briscoe’s transition to Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) from the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing marked a significant, promising turn in his career trajectory. He has shown decent performance with his new team thus far in the season. Although he secured a top-5 finish only once in the first five starts at the Daytona 500, he managed to conclude two races within the top 20, specifically placing 14th at COTA and 17th in Las Vegas.
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However, comparing his performances from last year, Briscoe finished two races in the top 10s by the end of the fifth week, in the 2024 Cup season. Despite that, he subtly criticized the atmosphere at SHR, expressing a more positive sentiment about his current performance environment at JGR.
Briscoe maintains high expectations and acknowledges the inherent pressure to excel, which he identifies as the primary difference this season.
According to Briscoe, the environment at Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) transcends mere pressure; it is an expectation of excellence. In a pre-Daytona 500 interview, he articulated:
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t run well. So that part of it is different [at JGR from SHR[. I was telling my wife a few weeks ago that this is the first time I’ve ever felt like I could legitimately win a Cup championship. At SHR (Stewart-Haas Racing), I told myself I could, but that was probably not going to happen.”
He elaborated, “Where like here (JGR), I can legitimately see myself getting to Phoenix and being a contender, which I’ve never really felt that way before. From that standpoint, I don’t know if it’s real pressure, it’s just the expectation is now much higher,” showing a big shift in his career perspective, where the bar is set substantially higher at JGR compared to his previous tenure at SHR.
Briscoe comments on what does JGR do better than SHR.
Briscoe highlighted Joe Gibbs’ hands-on involvement with the team as a key distinction. He acknowledged that such dynamics were absent during his tenure at Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR).
He pointed out that the key difference lay with, “The Coach [Joe Gibbs].” He hastened to add that he harbored no grievances against Gene [Haas] or Tony [Stewart], who were preoccupied with other ventures. Briscoe emphasized that for Gibbs, this is his business. This is what he eats, sleeps, and breathes every single day. He’s there at the Headquarters every single day.
The continuous involvement inevitably leads to some challenging scenarios. Briscoe shared an instance with his wife, noting, that the other day if a JGR team had a bad weekend, it’s weird seeing the boss on Monday who would be saying, “Why did we run so bad?”
Nevertheless, it is hoped that Briscoe will acclimate to the heightened expectations and performance standards at JGR and elevate his performance to meet their benchmarks.
