Forget the early-season script. While everyone spent the start of The Chase talking about Denny Hamlin or watching the dominant Kyle Larson show, the star of the moment is undoubtedly Chase Briscoe. Ever since stepping into the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing machine for 2025, taking over from Martin Truex Jr., Briscoe has quietly built a reputation as one of the grid's elite. He followed up a trip to the Championship 4 last season with a career-high Driver Rating of 95.2. Now, that steady upward trajectory has boiled over into absolute brilliance.
It started with a near-miss at Kansas where he led until the final seven laps before falling just short of Larson. Then came the haymaker: back-to-back victories at Las Vegas and Charlotte. That run makes Briscoe the author of only the 18th postseason win streak by a Chase/Playoff driver since 2004. That surge rocketed him up to fourth in the current standings, sitting 65 points behind Larson as the series stares down the final four races at Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville, and Homestead-Miami—a massive jump from ninth place after the Bristol Night Race just a few weeks ago.
Yet, in a wonderfully wild twist of motorsport irony, Briscoe crashing the party has quietly acted as the greatest favor anyone could have done for Larson's championship campaign. By snatching those trophies away, Briscoe has kept them out of the hands of closer title rivals to the No. 5 team. Forecast simulation models underline this beautifully: Larson stands as a commanding 72.5% title favorite over Christopher Bell at 10.6%, Hamlin at 8.9%, and Briscoe at 4.6%.
If the drivers sitting directly behind Larson in the standings—such as Bell, Hamlin, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, or Tyler Reddick—had taken those wins instead, the championship math would look terrifyingly different for the No. 5 camp. Bell finished a costly 23rd in Vegas and suffered one of history's closest runner-up finishes at Charlotte, while Denny managed a 16th at Vegas and a fifth at Charlotte. Forecasts show that if either Bell or Hamlin had rattled off those consecutive wins instead, they would have stepped into the role of outright title favorites over Larson. Instead, Briscoe's victories kept those direct threats bottled up.
That said, this alliance of convenience has a strict expiration date. Briscoe's own championship bid started this stretch as a long-shot, and even after piling up a massive 143 points over the past two races, he still trails Larson by 65 points. But simulation models show that if Briscoe stretches his streak to three in a row this week at Phoenix, his title odds jump to nearly 20% while Larson's drop by nearly 10 percentage points. Keep it rolling to four in a row at Talladega, and Briscoe suddenly becomes the title favorite at 55%. Take it all the way to five or six to close the season, and he very likely takes the crown.
So, Briscoe has undeniably played the role of Larson's ally over the past few weeks. Just don't expect that favor to last if the beast keeps winning.
