HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin walked away from Homestead-Miami Speedway with top-five efforts, but still searching for more from their Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas.
Briscoe notched a fourth-place finish Sunday to match his Daytona 500 result in his first top five since the February race. Hamlin led 15 laps ahead of finishing fifth, but those were the only ones JGR led in the 267-lap race.
MORE: Official results | At-track photos: Homestead
Briscoe is the newest driver on JGR’s roster, joining Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs at the four-car organization after four seasons at Stewart-Haas Racing. His Homestead finish was a much-needed step in the right direction after an opening five races in which he says it has been tough to find a rhythm.
“I just felt like we finished where we deserved to finish from a speed standpoint,” Briscoe said. “Today could have went, honestly, way worse. We have a lot to clean up still. I’d say we almost probably lost 20 spots on pit road today, so just had to keep battling from behind. But our car was really, really good — I say it was good, but it wasn’t as good as the 5. But it was still good.
“Just finally felt like we finished where we needed to to hopefully build some momentum. Hopefully, we can just continue to do this, continue to show that we’re one of those guys that can run up front week in and week out. It’s nice to finally do that. It’s been since the (Daytona) 500.”
JGR stands as a powerhouse within the NASCAR Cup Series garage, particularly evidenced by Bell’s three wins within the first four races of 2025. Briscoe, who drove the No. 14 car at SHR last year, believed he as a driver could perform in JGR equipment if given the opportunity. After a four-race stretch with finishes of 14th or worse, Briscoe and his No. 19 team delivered what he believes should be the standard of a JGR driver.
“We know that we’re capable, right?” Briscoe said. “But I think at least for me, from a confidence standpoint, I felt like I should be running in the top five all day long in Joe Gibbs Racing cars, but you never really know until you do it, right? So for me to be able to just be up front all day long … like in the past, there was only a couple weekends a year where I could do that and show that.
“So this year, hopefully we can do it a lot more often, and that’s definitely a lot of fun. It’s crazy, just the difference in car capability. So looking forward to the rest of the year and just continuing to click off races where we’re up front all day long and eventually it’ll go our way.”
Hamlin is the team’s veteran driver, a full-time Cup racer since the fall of 2005. A fifth-place finish might not do much to excite the 54-time winner these days, particularly as he believes his No. 11 team and the organization as a whole currently sits behind its top competition. Bell has led 114 laps thus far, fourth-most in the series; Hamlin has led 24, Briscoe nine and Ty Gibbs none.
“I still think we’ve got work to do,” Hamlin said. “I contend that we still don’t have the speed that it takes to lead a ton of laps, which is showing in laps led. We’re not leading laps like we have in the past. All of JGR. So I think we’ve just got to get our cars a little bit faster to really contend week in, week out, right now.”
