Chase Briscoe Holds Off Teammate To Claim First Win Of Season

It had been a long opening portion of the NASCAR Cup Series season for Chase Briscoe, who had flirted for a while with being in and out of the top-16 of the Chase Standings. Sunday night at Chicagoland Speedway, Briscoe finally cemented himself as a driver to watch as the season rolls through the summer months.

Briscoe would take his first win of the season in the eero 400.

“What an unbelievable weekend,” Briscoe said in his interview with TNT Sports. “I feel so American winning in the Bass Pro Shops Red, White, and Blue car. Fourth of July weekend, 250 years, and man, just what an unbelievable race car. [Crew Chief] James [Small] did a great job, team did a great job. Just honestly, I didn’t see this coming.”

Briscoe led the race on three occasions for a total of 51 laps, but it wasn't until the final green flag pit cycle of the race that it looked like this race was Briscoe's to lose.

The driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, paired with his fast pit crew and crew chief James Small calling his strategic moves, was able to claim the lead of the race from William Byron with 46 laps remaining.

Byron, who led a race-high 94 laps, was never really a factor for the remainder of the race, as he was stuck in dirty air, and he had a car that didn't have the long-run speed of Briscoe's car, or Briscoe's two Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin.

With Byron out of contention, Briscoe had to work hard to fend off his two teammates, who were closing the gap rapidly in the closing laps.

Fortunately, for Briscoe, Hamlin would collide with the outside wall with a few laps to go, which would leave Briscoe and Bell to duke it out for the race win.

Try as he might, and he sure tried, Bell was unable to force Briscoe into a mistake big enough to allow him to swoop in and take the lead, and Briscoe was able to cross the finish line for the final time ahead of Bell by 0.276 seconds.

After the race, Briscoe admitted he was nervous with how fast Bell was behind him, but that he had a little bit of fortune on his side.

“I kind of got lucky with how the lapped cars, honestly, kind of worked out,” Briscoe explained. “I was struggling pretty bad, and Christopher was certainly coming. Out of all the people to race against, I knew Christopher was going to be clean with me.”

The win marks the first of the season for Briscoe, and it is the driver's sixth career triumph in NASCAR Cup Series competition.

While he was carrying disappointment on his face after failing to secure his first win of the season, Bell was proud of his team for making adjustments to put him in the fight for the win on Sunday night.

“I just need to replay that last run, those last two runs, whatever it was,” Bell said. “Stage 3, whenever it went green. I was really struggling with the handling of my car early on in the race, and I still had a lot of pace. I keyed up the radio and said, ‘Hey, if we get this thing driving good, we’re going to have a shot at it,’ and yeah, they made a great adjustment, and got the car driving great the last run. But I was a straightaway plus behind it seemed like.”

Bell's runner-up finish continues the driver's gutsy recent run of races, where he has competed with a fractured left wrist, which he suffered in a hard crash at Michigan International Speedway a few weeks ago.

Hamlin, despite the contact with the outside wall, would salvage a third-place finish, and would extend his series point lead from one point over Tyler Reddick to 44 points. Reddick, who finished 36th, suffered a punctured radiator and spent 30 laps behind the wall at Chicagoland Speedway.

Byron, who swept the Stage 1 and 2 wins, would fade on the final run of the race, but would still be credited with a fourth-place finish, and he was followed to the finish line by Alex Bowman, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, who missed four races earlier this season.

eero 400 Race Results

1. 19 - Chase Briscoe
2. 20 - Christopher Bell
3. 11 - Denny Hamlin
4. 24 - William Byron
5. 48 - Alex Bowman
6. 23 - Bubba Wallace
7. 12 - Ryan Blaney
8. 54 - Ty Gibbs
9. 67 - Corey Heim
10. 35 - Riley Herbst
11. 9 - Chase Elliott
12. 22 - Joey Logano
13. 2 - Austin Cindric
14. 7 - Daniel Suarez
15. 43 - Erik Jones
16. 34 - Todd Gilliland
17. 16 - AJ Allmendinger
18. 1 - Ross Chastain
19. 17 - Chris Buescher
20. 10 - Ty Dillon
21. 6 - Brad Keselowski
22. 77 - Carson Hocevar
23. 42 - John Hunter Nemechek
24. 3 - Austin Dillon
25. 97 - Shane van Gisbergen
26. 47 - Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
27. 4 - Noah Gragson
28. 38 - Zane Smith
29. 71 - Michael McDowell
30. 51 - Cody Ware
31. 41 - Cole Custer
32. 60 - Ryan Preece
33. 21 - Josh Berry
34. 5 - Kyle Larson
35. 44 - JJ Yeley
36. 45 - Tyler Reddick
37. 33 - Austin Hill
38. 88 - Connor Zilisch

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