Chase Briscoe did it again, winning for the second straight week and in the second-closest finish in Charlotte Motor Speedway history over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell. After six races in the Chase presented by Mobil 1, Briscoe sits 65 points back of Kyle Larson after making up 58 points over the last two races.
Here’s where we stand in The Chase after the Bank of America 400 at Charlotte and before Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix Raceway (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Charlotte results | Cup Series standings
Chase Changer
There were two big moments in Sunday’s race that had profound effects on what the standings look like today — or what they could’ve looked like had these moments played out differently. The top one was when Briscoe’s No. 19 Toyota crew turned in the three fastest pit stops of the day, including on Lap 207 when Briscoe took the lead from Bell and held onto it for the final 61 laps to win the race by 0.029 seconds. Any lost time on pit road could have cost Briscoe the win, and had Bell won, he’d be only 31 points behind Larson instead of 51.
The other big moment came earlier on Lap 123 when Larson received contact from Denny Hamlin and dropped from second place to seventh. Up to that point, Larson had dominated, winning Stage 1 after leading the first 45 laps and leading a long stretch between Laps 59 and 107. But after the bump from Hamlin, Larson led only two more laps the rest of the way. Larson finished sixth and gained nine points over Hamlin in the standings and now enjoys a 49-point gap, but the margin could’ve been a lot bigger had Larson continued his dominance throughout the race and ended up winning.
The Chase Board
Despite Briscoe’s hot streak, Larson’s lead over the second-place driver in the standings has grown. This is both a testament to Larson’s ability to avoid the catastrophes that have plagued other Chase drivers and the fact that the driver in the hottest pursuit of him is coming from pretty far back to begin with. It would be a different story if it were Hamlin who was on a two-race winning streak and cozying himself up to Larson in the standings.
The rest of the field needs Larson to have a bad day, but that just hasn’t happened. The sixth-place finish at Charlotte was his “bad day” of this Chase so far, but it’s certainly not the type of meltdown needed to make a big difference. Meanwhile, Bubba Wallace and William Byron were collected in a massive wreck with Alex Bowman and saw their days end early. Hamlin had issues on pit road that caused him to lose track position. Ryan Blaney picked up a speeding penalty on pit road. Chase Elliott had to come back down pit road to tighten a lug nut, and the list goes on without Larson being on it.
As a result of Larson’s near-perfection, the pressure is building on the other drivers. And that pressure is perhaps no greater than on Hamlin, who has set the deadline of this year or next for him to finally win a championship. Hamlin was supposed to gain ground on Larson in the stretch of three intermediate tracks, but instead his deficit to Larson has grown from one point to 49 points. Hamlin’s demeanor has also seemed to change as the chances for him to snap out of his Chase “funk” have started to melt away.
| Rank | Driver | Points Behind | Gain/Loss to Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle Larson | -- | Gained 9 |
| 2 | Denny Hamlin | -49 | Lost 9 |
| 3 | Christopher Bell | -51 | Gained 4 |
| 4 | Chase Briscoe | -65 | Gained 19 |
| 5 | Ryan Blaney | -85 | Lost 5 |
| 6 | Joey Logano | -92 | Lost 21 |
| 7 | Tyler Reddick | -114 | Lost 8 |
| 8 | Austin Cindric | -145 | Lost 17 |
| 9 | Ty Gibbs | -156 | Lost 46 |
| 10 | Carson Hocevar | -180 | Lost 22 |
| 11 | Bubba Wallace | -185 | Lost 48 |
| 12 | Chase Elliott | -185 | Lost 22 |
| 13 | William Byron | -208 | Lost 48 |
| 14 | Daniel Suárez | -215 | Lost 20 |
| 15 | Chris Buescher | -216 | Lost 20 |
| 16 | Ryan Preece | -227 | Lost 27 |
Source: Racing Insights
Next Up
Phoenix Raceway is next, with the former host of Championship Weekend starting a string of three races all on different track types, with Talladega Superspeedway and Martinsville Speedway to follow before the season finishes up on a 1.5-mile track at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Perhaps the driver most likely to benefit from this stretch is Blaney, who has won multiple times on all three of these tracks, including the last two Phoenix races.
But he will get competition from teammate Joey Logano, who has four wins at Phoenix, and Bell and Hamlin, who each have two wins there. Briscoe got his first Cup Series win in 2022 for Stewart-Haas Racing but has struggled there of late with no finishes better than 18th over the last four races.
Kyle Larson also has a win at Phoenix back in 2021 when his pit crew executed a perfect final stop to propel him to the championship. Larson has finished in the top four in six of the last seven Phoenix races, so a chance for a slip-up does not appear too good — unless you believe in the law of averages.
Fellow Chase drivers Byron and Elliott also have wins at Phoenix, with theirs coming in spring of 2023 and fall of 2020, respectively. So Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske appear headed for a battle in the desert to see where this Chase journey takes us.