To call Chase Briscoe’s start to the season unfortunate would be an understatement. The Joe Gibbs Racing star, who had a stellar 2025 season, stumbled upon multiple roadblocks coming into 2026, especially in his last two races at COTA and Phoenix. Despite this, fellow NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski has full faith in him, as the RFK star predicted a turnaround for the No. 19.

Keselowski’s take on Chase Briscoe

Brad Keselowski was the guest on the recently released episode of the Dale Jr Download podcast, where the RFK Racing driver shed light on Chase Briscoe and his unfortunate start to the season.

“Where’s the 19 car? Chase Briscoe. I don’t even know where he’s at on here. He’s had a terrible start to the year. That one’s probably the biggest surprise,” Keselowski said. “But Briscoe, this is a guy that ended the year last year and I don’t know if there was anybody better. I know Denny dominated Phoenix. I know Larson ended up winning the championship, but if you sample size the last 15 16 races of 2025, Chase Briscoe was the guy, and he has started off this year not the guy. Things have not gone his way.”

Following this, Keselowski highlighted how Briscoe’s bad start was not his fault. Back-to-back issues with wrecks and mechanical failures put the #19 driver in 33rd place after four races, with just 47 points. Speaking about this, Keselowski added, as he put all faith in Briscoe:

“It’s not necessarily been his fault. I mean, he’s broke down two races. Yeah. Well, he doesn’t read the map. You just if you just read the map, you’d be okay. The DVP map. So he didn’t have a great… He hasn’t had a great start to the season. What’s going to be really interesting is with this points format, can he work his way in the top 16? Absolutely. No doubt in my mind.”

Notably, Chase Briscoe suffered from multiple issues right from the start of the season. At Daytona, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver suffered from a wreck in the early laps and finished his race in 37th place.

Briscoe bounced back at Atlanta with a second-place finish, but suffered back-to-back mechanical failures at COTA and Phoenix. Firstly, it was a right-front tire failure, followed by a broken transaxle.

As a result, Briscoe is down in the drivers’ standings. However, as Brad Keselowski mentioned, Briscoe can still make it to the Top 16 by the end of 26 races and qualify for the Chase.

Meanwhile, his teammate Denny Hamlin also feels the same.

Denny Hamlin puts faith in teammate

Despite the early setbacks, Denny Hamlin believes Chase Briscoe can still turn things around and qualify for the Chase after 26 races, and then push for the championship.

“He’s gotta get hot,” Hamlin said Monday on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “Listen, if he goes, and he wins two of the next five races and stacks some top 5s and 10s in the other ones, I think we’re talking, ‘look at this charge he just made, he’s only 100 out of the points lead.’ [It’s] a little too early for that.”

Last year, Chase Briscoe finished the season in third place with 5019 points, behind winner Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin. Despite having a fairly underwhelming start, Briscoe claimed three wins and went on to qualify for the Championship 4 in his first year for JGR.