Denny Hamlin Exposes Reason Behind Chase Briscoe’s JGR resurgence

Denny Hamlin partnered up with Chase Briscoe at JGR for the 2025 season onwards. Briscoe had some difficult shoes to fill as he replaced the outgoing Martin Truex Jr. in the #19 Toyota. The 30-year-old has impressed the grid in his debut year with JGR as he has already achieved a race win at Pocono with over seven top-five finishes. Now, the team’s veteran Hamlin has revealed the reasons behind Briscoe’s resurgence in terms of performance.

Chase Briscoe‘s time at Stewart-Haas was nothing short of a massive challenge as he cleared into the playoffs only once out of the four seasons he raced for them. Following his former team’s sudden exit from NASCAR, Briscoe replaced Martin Truex Jr. and took on the challenge to succeed at JGR. The 30-year-old’s partnership with Denny Hamlin received mixed opinions as he filled in the seat of Truex Jr..

However, in the 2025 season, Chase Briscoe has put forth impressive results as he has locked in his spot in the playoffs. Speaking of Briscoe’s resurgence in performance at JGR, Denny Hamlin shared his opinion. The 44-year-old insisted that the #19 driver struggled in the beginning as he just joined from a comparatively smaller team in Stewart-Haas to a full-fledged organization in JGR.

Denny Hamlin pointed out that Chase Briscoe understood the direction that JGR wanted to go in and started to learn the ropes quickly. Joining a new team was challenging for Briscoe as JGR’s operations remained completely different from the other teams he had raced with before.

I think at the beginning it was a struggle. I think he struggled with understanding how differently our cars drove, Now, that direction got sent, you know, the way our cars drive got sent through meetings, where us drivers are sending our engineers down a path of, this is what we want out of our cars. And it was different than what he had had over at Stewart-Haas and the other places that he was.

Denny Hamlin said on Dale Jr. Download.

Denny Hamlin claims NASCAR ‘starting to see’ Chase Briscoe’s potential

Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe’s pair-up might arguably be one of the better pair-ups in the current season. Both drivers seem to hit their peak in performance at the right time of the 2025 season as the championship seems to heat up further. Now, Hamlin asserts that the sport is finally starting to witness Briscoe’s full potential being used at JGR.