eero 400: Chase Briscoe wins NASCAR’s Chicagoland return

JOLIET, IlI. — Chase Briscoe fought hard and held off his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates to earn his first win of the 2026 season in the NASCAR Cup Series’ return to Chicagoland Speedway for the first time since 2019.

Briscoe led 51 of 267 laps in his No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota and used a fast pit stop during the caution-free final stage to get ahead of William Byron for the lead. From there, Briscoe was challenged, but held on for his fourth victory in the last two seasons with JGR.

“What an unbelievable weekend,” Briscoe said. “I feel so American winning in the Bass Pro Shops Red, White and Blue Toyota Fourth of July weekend, 250 years. Just an unbelievable race car. James (Small, Crew Chief) and team did a great job. Honestly, I did not see this coming; I kind of felt like I was struggling in practice and qualifying. James and the group did a great job and it’s just so cool to get this paint scheme back in Victory Lane. Appreciate all our partners, Free Bird, Zett, Wix, Tracker Boats, True Timber Camo, Mobil 1, just appreciate everyone that makes this happen. What a cool weekend to win a NASCAR race.”

Christopher Bell’s No. 20 SAIA Freight + Logistics Toyota team believed if the final stage went green, they could go out and win. He battled his way through the field, but came up 0.276 seconds short of finding Victory Lane for the first time in 2026.

“I just need to replay that last run, the last two runs, whatever it was, Stage 3, whenever it went green,” Bell said. “I was really struggling with the handling of my car early on in the race, and I still had a lot of pace, so I keyed up on the radio and said, hey, if we get this thing driving good, we’re going to have a shot at it. They made a great adjustment and got the car driving great the last run, but I was a straightaway plus behind, it seemed like. I was soft on my green flag entry for sure, which gave up a little bit of time. So just need to go back and study that green flag cycle on how I lost so much time to the first couple of cars.

“It was a great day,” he added. “First race with SAIA on our Toyota Camry. We almost went to Victory Lane. Yeah, Toyotas are fast. It seems like a monkey can drive them, so it’s just disappointing when you get beat by another monkey.”

Cup Series points leader Denny Hamlin completed the podium of the JGR 1-2-3 finish after starting on pole and leading 30 laps early in the eero 400 at Chicagoland. Hamlin, in his last five non-road-course races, has finished third, first, first, first and third.

“I thought I was in control early on, even though I wasn’t leading,” Hamlin said. “I felt in control and probably got a little lazy on some restarts and things like that. Just taking for granted that I’ll just go up and there get it. Briscoe and Bell, they got their cars really good there the second half of the race, and (William) Byron as well. You know, we just lost the balance there in Stage 3. I got loose, lost ground, lost a couple of seconds. Then we went long and come out nine seconds back, and I thought it was going to be really close to get there, but I just pushed it too far into the wall there with a few laps to go and had to settle for third.”

Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron had one of his best days of the 2026 season. The driver of the No. 24 Anduril Chevrolet swept the stages, led a race-high 94 laps and earned 53 points after finishing in fourth.

“I’m happy with the finish because we maximized what we could do,” Byron said. “A win would have been awesome. We’ve been craving that for a long time and working really hard to get there. We could kind of taste it there with a couple runs to go. We got jumped by the No. 19 (Chase Briscoe, race winner) there on that last green flag pit cycle, but I just didn’t quite have the pace that last run to keep up with him, and then those other guys had fresher tires at the end.

“Just thank you to Anduril, Chevrolet and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports for working super-hard,” Byron added. “We’ve been grinding a lot. For us on the No. 24 team, that last two ovals we’ve been to, we’ve had a shot to compete and win, so we just have to keep that going.”

Results from the 2026 eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway are listed below:

Other Race Facts

Toyota Racing had seven drivers inside the top 10, the most the manufacturer has ever had in a NASCAR Cup Series race.

• Chase Briscoe (first)
• Christopher Bell (second)
• Denny Hamlin (third)
• Bubba Wallace (sixth)
• Ty Gibbs (eighth)
• Corey Heim (ninth)
• Riley Herbst (10th)

Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman finished in fifth at Chicagoland Speedway, the place where he was the last Cup Series winner back in 2019. Bowman now has three top fives in 2026.

“It definitely feels nice to have a good, normal, solid day for this No. 48 Ally Chevrolet team,” Bowman said. “We didn’t start the day how we wanted to. We were super-tight taking off on those first couple of restarts. But at the end of Stage 2 until the end of the race, I felt pretty good about the Ally Chevrolet. Hats off to the entire No. 48 team. We just needed a good, normal day. It feels like a win with how the season has gone, but we just have to keep digging every week.”

Only 16 cars finished on the lead lap.

Connor Zilisch’s bad luck continued as he was involved in a Lap 1 incident that ended his race before it really even started. The Trackhouse Racing driver now has five DNFs in the last seven races, with all of those finishes being 37th or worse. According to Joseph Srigley, his seven DNFs in the first 19 races are the most at this point in the season since Ryan Preece and Timmy Hill in 2020.

A couple of on-track incidents occurred between drivers who have previously had history with one another. Early in the race, Zane Smith got into the back of Carson Hocevar, sending both drivers into the outside wall. Later on, Shane van Gisbergen slammed into Austin Hill and sent him into the wall with the rear. Hill later retaliated under caution, door-slamming van Gisbergen to show his displeasure.

NASCAR will likely review these on-track incidents and give a ruling on whether they deemed them intentional or not later in the week.

JJ Yeley led two laps in the eero 400. He has now led laps in two consecutive races for the first time in his Cup Series career.

In-Season Challenge Updates

Year 2 of the NASCAR In-Season Challenge saw multiple upsets in Round 1 and even more in Round 2.

Some of the larger upsets included No. 32 seed Alex Bowman eliminating No. 16 seed Austin Cindric, No. 25 seed Todd Gilliland eliminating No. 9 seed Carson Hocevar and No. 12 seed Chase Briscoe taking down defending In-Season Challenge champion No. 5 seed Ty Gibbs.

GRID RANKING

The 2026 GRID Ranking is the 10th year of the world’s premier motorsports ranking system, which was initially released on Sunday, April 5.

The official ranking includes drivers participating in seven racing series (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, Formula E, WRC, Supercars, MotoGP). Each driver earns GRID Ratings, which help determine their seeding in the GRID Ranking.

DRIVER	OLD RATING	PREVIOUS RANKING	MOST RECENT FINISH	NEW RATING	NEW RANKING
Tyler Reddick	16.53	2nd	36th	15.66	3rd
Denny Hamlin	14.47	5th	3rd	14.88	5th
Ty Gibbs	9.95	24th	8th	9.74	22nd
Kyle Larson	10.11	23rd	34th	9.58	24th
Chase Briscoe	N/A	N/A	1st	9.19	27th

Week 14 of the GRID Ranking:

Week 14 of the GRID Ranking saw a couple of large changes, as both Kimi Antonelli and Tyler Reddick had rough races that allowed the gap at the top to shrink dramatically. Another bad day for Reddick and a great day for Hamlin have shrunk the gap between the two. Ty Gibbs capitalized on a Kyle Larson mistake to pass him in the standings, and Chase Briscoe replaces Chase Elliott in the NASCAR GRID Rating.

The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart at EchoPark Speedway on Sunday, July 12. Coverage will begin at 7 p.m. ET on TNT Sports.

 

GRID Network