Dale Earnhardt Jr. is never short on opinions when it comes to analyzing drivers. He has been keeping his eye on Chase Briscoe the last several weeks, and in Junior’s opinion, it’s now Briscoe’s time to shine.
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On Sunday’s pre-race Live From Nashville episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt praised Briscoe, who started on the pole at the 1.333-mile Nashville Superspeedway.
Briscoe was inconsistent earlier this season — both in qualifying and finishing — but he appears to have started coming into his own in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing after four years at Stewart-Haas Racing, which folded after last season.
In his last five races prior to Nashville, Briscoe has three top-fives and one other top-15 finish: 4th, 15th, 27th, 4th and 3rd last week in the Coca-Cola 600. That’s in stark contrast to Briscoe’s first five races this season with JGR: 4th, 21st, 14th, 35th and 17th.
On top of it all, he earned his third pole of the season — and for the second straight race, will lead the field to green after doing so last week at the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte.
“(Briscoe) told me that his only problem and the reason why they’ve struggled was he wasn’t able to go out there and really commit to the race car in qualifying,” Earnhardt said. “No knock on SHR, but he said that the Joe Gibbs cars just had so much more ability that he’s just not used to.”
Junior said under-driving the car in qualifying hurt Briscoe’s lap times. He explained that with how tight the field is, not running a perfect lap puts a driver in the back half of the grid — a position that was tough for Briscoe to recover from.
Poor qualifying led to poor finishes, which then affected his qualifying draw the following week, digging a hole that was hard to get out of. But now, things seem to be changing for the better.
“(With) these last few weeks’ great qualifying efforts, he’s starting to realize how to get this car around the racetrack to be able to get that better starting position, better pit selection, better finishes. End result: he starts qualifying in a better position every weekend and continues to progress,” Junior added.
Junior: Briscoe ready to join Hamlin, Bell performance-wise
Earnhardt then paid Briscoe a high compliment, predicting that he will soon match teammates Christopher Bell (three wins this season) and Denny Hamlin (two wins) in performance.
Junior said, “I think it took longer for us than we anticipated for that team to get going, but I’m not surprised and won’t be surprised to see him running as well as Denny and C.(Christopher) Bell over the next several weeks.”
Briscoe himself wasn’t surprised by the improvement, especially after how the car felt in Friday’s practice. “It was the best driving car of my life here,” Briscoe said.
“It just drives better, has better grip, turns better, and goes faster. It just makes my job way easier. Honestly, I think that is a lot of it. For whatever reason, at SHR, we just struggled really, really bad here.
“Just comes all down to car at this level, to a certain extent. I’m in, arguably, one of the best cars every single week, so it makes my job a lot easier.”
If his recent form is any indication, Briscoe’s breakout run at JGR might just be getting started.
