JOLIET, Ill. – Chase Briscoe earned his first NASCAR Cup Series win at a 1.5-mile track in front of a sold-out crowd on Sunday after he outran Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Christopher Bell in the eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

With five-career wins entering the night, it’s wild that Briscoe is just now earning his first series victory on a 1.5-mile track, and he did so at a track where he had never previously competed in the NASCAR Cup Series. Thanks to pit strategy and a fast No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota, Briscoe took the lead for the final time with 46 laps to go and he never looked back. The sixth win of his career is a strong follow-up from a runner-up at Sonoma Raceway just a week ago.

“I feel so American winning in the Bass Pro Shop’s Red, White, and Blue car, 4th of July weekend, 250 years,” Briscoe said. “Man, just what an unbelievable race car. James did a great job. Team did a pretty job. Honestly did not see this coming.”

In the closing laps, Briscoe was challenged by Bell who has also been impressive all day. The two drivers navigated lapped traffic, and the advantage went to Briscoe. With strong performances from Joe Gibbs Racing and 23XI Racing, Toyota placed seven drivers in the top-10 for the first time in NASCAR Cup Series history.

“I kind of got lucky having lap cars,” Briscoe said. “I was struggling pretty bad. Christopher was certainly coming. Out of all the people to race against, I knew Christopher was going to be clean with me. JGR ran 1, 2. I don’t know if we were 3rd, 4th either. I thought that was about as good as I race you could get. The cat-and-mouse game, and we were slipping and sliding around. Hopefully you could see it on TV. So excited to be back in Chicagoland. Hopefully we can be back.”

Bell finished second for the fourth time this season. He’s still searching for his first win of 2026. Still recovering from a fractured wrist, Bell held his own on Sunday as he started sixth, finished Stage 2 in sixth and challenged for the race win. At the end of the day, he ran out of time and just wasn’t able to get through the lapped traffic efficiently enough.

“Yeah, they made a great adjustment and got the car driving great the last run, but I was a straight away plus behind, it seemed like,” Bell said.

He continued and said, “Yeah, 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.”

Polesitter Denny Hamlin finished third, followed by William Byron who swept Stages 1 and 2 and his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Alex Bowman. Rounding out the top-10 was Bubba Wallace, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, and 23XI Racing teammates Corey Heim and Riley Herbst.

There were 28 lead changes among 13 drivers. Byron led a race high of 94 laps.

The caution came out seven times for 43 laps. Four cautions were for accidents on the track.

The first caution occurred on the opening lap, when Ryan Preece spun on the backstretch, and Connor Zilisch crashed while trying to avoid him.

Todd Gilliland and Carson Hocevar tangled in Turn 2 to bring out the caution on Lap 33.

On Lap 49, Austin Hill backed hard into the wall in Turn 3 after contact with Shane van Gisbergen.

Kyle Larson spun out in Turn 4 to bring the caution out on Lap 94. He got stuck and had to be pushed. He finished 34^th.

Drama continued to unfold in the point battle. Tyler Reddick suffered a mechanical issue after debris punched a hole in his radiator. Reddick suffered power steering issues a week ago at Sonoma, so bad luck continues for the driver of the 23XI Racing No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota. Denny Hamlin now has a fairly comfortable 44-point lead.

The NASCAR Cup Series will visit EchoPark Speedway on Sunday, July 12 for the Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart. Live coverage will broadcast on TNT at 7 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Patricia McCormack/TheFourthTurn.com