Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell may have broken some big 2025 news. …accidentally. The three-time New Hampshire Xfinity Series race winner and 2022 NASCAR Cup Series winner at the track spoke with reporters Friday afternoon. In answering a question about the future leadership of the four-car JGR team with the departure of Truex at the end of the season, he slipped and appeared to confirm speculation that Truex’s replacement would be Chase Briscoe.
“It could be whoever has a good race that week – so I don’t think that there really is a leadership role in that aspect and whenever Chase comes into the car.” Bell said before cutting himself off with a grin and glance toward his JGR public relations team.
Briscoe is among the four-driver Stewart-Haas Racing stable – also Ryan Preece, Josh Berry and Noah Gragson – that is looking for a new job next year after the SHR team announced weeks ago that it would be closing down operations at the end of the 2024 season. JGR has not released any official statement regarding the next driver of its No. 19 Toyota.
Briscoe smiled Saturday during his media availability, conceding he’d received almost 100 messages on his phone Friday night after Bell’s statement – but couldn’t access them for hours because of spotty cell service at the New England dirt track where he was racing. Briscoe didn’t confirm his 2025 plans but said he expected an announcement coming soon, perhaps as early as next week.
“It was funny, Christopher texted me and was like, ‘man, I messed up so bad,’” Briscoe said smiling. “And I was like, what happened? He was like ‘go look at Twitter.’
“I couldn’t get a single text to out and couldn’t receive a text. … I didn’t really know what had happened for probably three to four hours while I was over there [racing] and then a couple people told me what happened. … It was funny, kinda weird knowing something was out there but not having any ability to see what it was or what happened. Definitely an odd night.”
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