It’s official: Chase Briscoe is headed to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2025.
Days after Christopher Bell accidentally mentioned Briscoe as his new teammate, the team confirmed that the 30-year-old would replace the retiring Martin Truex Jr. in the No. 19 car next season. Briscoe’s current team, Stewart-Haas Racing, is closing at the end of the season.
The announcement of Briscoe comes less than two weeks after Truex said he was ending his full-time driving career following the 2024 season. Truex made the decision to retire after contemplating retirement during each of the previous two seasons.
Briscoe will take over one of the top rides at one of the three best teams in the Cup Series in 2025. Coincidentally, Tuesday’s announcement comes two days after Briscoe finished second to Bell in New Hampshire.
Briscoe is currently 16th in the points standings with six top-10 finishes through the first half of the season. He’s the top SHR driver in the points and the only one of the team’s four drivers who has won a Cup Series race.
That win came in March of 2022 as Briscoe won at Phoenix. The win qualified him for the playoffs and he finished ninth in the standings, with six top-fives and 10 top-10 finishes. His average finish of 17th that season is a full spot lower than his average finish in 2024.
Last season was a slog for Briscoe and all of Stewart-Haas outside of Kevin Harvick. Briscoe finished 30th in the standings thanks to a massive points penalty for car modifications early in the season and had just three top-10 finishes over the final 16 races of the year.
JGR also announced that current Truex crew chief James Small will stay as Briscoe’s crew chief in 2025. Small has been Truex’s crew chief since the start of the 2020 season following Cole Pearn’s departure from NASCAR. Truex and Pearn were the best driver/crew chief combination in NASCAR at Furniture Row Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing in the late 2010s. Truex has eight wins over 163 races with Small as his crew chief and was second in the points standings in 2021.
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