Chase Briscoe may have won the eero 400 at Chicagoland, but he feels that driving for a Toyota-backed team in the Cup Series carries a certain amount of pressure, given how the automaker is leading compared to Chevrolet and Ford. 

Speaking to the media at the post-race press conference, Briscoe noted that performance often fluctuates, so when a team has a fast car on a track that suits its strengths, the drivers must capitalize on that advantage because those opportunities are not guaranteed. 

“There's definitely a lot of pressure to go and and run good. And you know, it goes in in ups and flows, right? Like a year from now, the Toyotas could be way off and the Chevys and Fords could be unbelievable. So when you're good, you have to take advantage of it. And especially at the types of racetracks where the Toyotas are typically the best is the mile and a half," Briscoe said.

"So when you come to a mile and a half, like you cannot have a bad day. You need to take advantage of it because it's not very often you have, you know, race-winning cars. So when you have them, you have to try to win, especially in this format,” he added in the video uploaded by Cup Scene on YouTube.

While Chevrolet has managed to secure six wins in the season, Toyota’s dominance in this season has been very noticeable. In the manufacturer rankings, it is currently leading with 892 points and 12 wins, leading by 120 points. 

Meanwhile, Ford has just one win to its name this season, which came earlier this year at the Phoenix Raceway, thanks to a stellar show by Penske’s Ryan Blaney. 

Amidst this, Brad Keselowski has a say as to why Toyota is excelling.

Toyota’s resource-sharing needs to be emulated

At the pre-race press conference, the RFK Racing driver and co-owner credited Toyota for superior decision-making, which is currently giving them an edge over Ford and Chevrolet. 

He feels that the level of collaboration and data-sharing between teams at Toyota is on a much higher level compared to the other two OEMs. He also argued that at Toyota, there aren’t the kind of organizational ladders or priorities that would hamper the performance of teams on the track. 

“I'll give a lot of credit to Toyota for this is they've recognized that that stalemate is not necessarily good for the sport or for them as an OEM and they they've done a lot of things to push elite collaboration amongst their top organizations so that they have, for reference two kind of A organizations rather than a A-B. 

"As I've seen to date, the other OEMs have not done that, and Toyota is making them pay for that with results on the racetrack. They deserve credit for that. It's it's a really great behind-the-scenes move that they're they've taken full advantage of and in a way that is legal and probably should be.”

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason