JOLIET, Ill. — It became a battle of the Toyotas in the final 20 laps of the eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, as Chase Briscoe and the No. 19 team held off teammate Christopher Bell in the closing laps.
Briscoe and Bell had set themselves up with a chance to win after the final pit stop cycle, the two Joe Gibbs Racing drivers were able to fly by William Byron who was on a different pit stop strategy, the race came down to if Bell could catch Briscoe.
Denny Hamlin, another JGR driver was also charging through the field and appeared to be closing in on the leaders, however, he ran into the wall with under five laps to go and held his third-place position instead of pushing for more.
Bell had the faster car with fresher tires and caught up to Briscoe with one lap to go, unfortunately for the No. 20 team, Bell was unable to complete the last-lap pass and settled for a runner-up finish. It’s important to note that Bell’s result is still impressive, as the driver is still recovering from a fractured wrist he suffered over a month ago at Michigan.
The most mind-blowing stat from Sunday’s race is that Toyota was able to place seven cars in the top-ten. As reported from Toyota post-race, this was an accomplishment that has never been achieved before, marking the 2026 eero 400 results a historic one for Toyota.
Stage 1 proved to be the most chaotic segment of the race, with multiple wrecks and drama occurring in the first 80 laps. Kyle Larson, Shane van Gisbergen, Carson Hocevar, Zane Smith, Austin Hill, Connor Zilisch, and Ryan Preece all ran into issues in the opening stage.
Beginning with the SVG and Austin Hill wreck, many first-viewed this as “payback” from when Hill wrecked SVG at San Diego a few weeks ago. Richard Childress, owner of RCR Racing said, “Yep, it was just payback from California. Somebody talk to NASCAR about that. That was blatant.”
Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar tangled up in turns 1 and 2, leaving both drivers with a challenging day. Smith was at fault for this wreck, he washed up into Hocevar leaving both cars with solid damage into the outside wall. Smith finished in 28th while Hocevar in 22nd.
Next weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to EchoPark Speedway, tune into TNT Sports on Sunday, July 12th, at 7:00 pm to catch the event.