NASCAR star Chase Briscoe issues verdict on people 'sleeping' on him

NASCAR star Chase Briscoe has issued his verdict on whether or not people are sleeping on him when it comes to the championship battle this season.

Briscoe put his No. 19 Toyota into Victory Lane for the first time in 2026 at Chicagoland on Sunday, finishing ahead of teammates Christopher Bell and Hamlin in a 1-2-3 Joe Gibbs Racing finish.

The victory moves him up to eighth in the Cup Series standings, too, now just 46 points adrift of Chase Elliott in fifth position.

However, much of the talk about the championship this year has been centred around Hamlin and Reddick, understandably so given their wins and positions as one and two in the standings.

Briscoe, though, believes that he has had the speed to match them both, but must find more consistency ahead of The Chase if he is to have a shot at the title.

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Are people sleeping on Chase Briscoe?

"We still have a long way to go. We have not been as consistent as the 11 and the 45," Briscoe told the media at Chicagoland when asked if people were sleeping on him this season. "But from a speed standpoint, I feel like we’ve been there with them. The 11 has probably been a little bit quicker.

"So, yeah, I think we still need a little bit. The hard part is we’re just going to be playing from behind the whole playoffs, or the whole chase just because of our points situation

"I talked about last week how if I can win two or three races here in the next eight before the regular season ends, then there’s a real path of getting to maybe top 5 in points.

"Yeah, next week is going to be a huge thing, because points can really swing a lot just with it being a superspeedway. Then you have Daytona too. You just kind of have to have a little bit of luck in those two races to really get yourself there.

"But with how much extra incentive there is to win races now in the points structure, even in the chase, if you can just win two or three races, you can close that gap pretty quickly.

"It just makes it where you don’t really have any mulligans to start. That’s where Tyler and Denny are going to have an advantage."