Briscoe 'could have done a lot' differently if not racing teammate for Dover win

The first time Chase Briscoe got “big time sideways” all afternoon at Dover Motor Speedway was the most inopportune.

Briscoe, on fresher tires, was side-by-side with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin coming to the white flag when his No. 19 Toyota got loose. It ended any momentum and challenge Briscoe might have had, and he followed Hamlin to the checkered flag. But even if Briscoe and Hamlin had fought it out to the end, Briscoe isn’t sure he would have completed a winning pass.

“I don’t know,” he said. “He was doing such a good job of pinning me so tight that I couldn’t really do a whole lot. If I could have stayed there one more lap? I don’t know, it’s hard to say, right? I was two, three inches away from clearing him a couple of times, and could never get it done.

“Denny was probably the best car, so it was going to be hard to just pass him – even with the tire advantage, I couldn’t do it. I definitely think if it wasn’t a teammate, I could have done a lot of things differently to potentially win the race. But I didn’t want to screw one of the JGR cars.”

Briscoe and the No. 19 team gained a tire advantage when NASCAR restarted the race after a red flag for rain that lasted nearly one hour. At the time, only 14 laps were remaining, and Briscoe was among those who chose to pit before the race restarted.

There were eight laps to go when the race restarted in regulation. Briscoe, who restarted 10th, was up to fourth position when the caution flew a lap after the restart. He then restarted on the outside of the second row, in fourth position, with two laps to go.

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Briscoe was able to take the outside when Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott both chose the bottom lane.

“I was blown away; that was a gift,” Briscoe said.

He moved to second on the restart, shoving Hamlin down the frontstretch and into Turn 1, which allowed them both to clear the field. A caution before Hamlin took the white flag set up an overtime finish.

For the final restart, Briscoe took the inside of Hamlin.

“I got two gifts, honestly,” he said of his run to the finish. “Reddick, the first one, took the inside and allowed me to take the outside, which, being on [new] tires, let me go to the third lane and pass a ton of guys and have a run, so that was the first gift.

“Then I was blown away I got the outside (for the next restart). … For me, on the tires, I wanted to be on top.”

The runner-up effort was Briscoe’s second in as many weeks. In the last six races, he's earned four top-10 finishes, including a victory at Pocono Raceway.

“To a certain extent, we’ve been executing,” he said of his team’s recent stretch of races. “Chicago, I should have run top five there, and I messed up and hit the wall with a couple of laps to go. From a speed standpoint, today we weren’t the best car, but outside of today, the last couple of weeks I feel like we’ve been a top two or three car everywhere we’ve gone.

“I definitely feel like we’re in a really good spot right now. If the playoffs started right now, I’d feel great about it. We can still have a little bit more speed, but overall we’ve been executing and that’s what it takes a lot of the time.”