"Out of the blue": Denny Hamlin deems Chase Briscoe's current playoff run 'very Blaney-esque'

Denny Hamlin recently shared his take on Chase Briscoe and his newfound speed in the NASCAR playoffs. Briscoe, who qualified for the Round of 12 following Bristol, won at Darlington to book his spot in the post-season.

Before his win in the last race of the regular season, Briscoe had only managed a couple of top-5 finishes. At one point in the season, Briscoe finished inside the top 10 in back-to-back races (Martinsville and Texas).

In the first three of the playoffs, Chase Briscoe has finished 38th, 6th, and 8th, finishing the first round with two back-to-back top-10 finishes. This was something that Denny Hamlin praised the #14 team for recently on Actions Detrimental

"Chase Briscoe and Stewart Haas, hats off to them. Richard Boswell (Briscoe's crew chief) is going a fabulous job, getting that speed that we have not seen all season. It is out of the blue. It is very Blaney-esque from last season where you just didn't see or hear much from him and then bam! Here comes playoffs time and then all of a sudden ... the difference with Blaney is that they were winning races up front. His average running finish has got to be substantially better than what it was during regular season, not sure what's prompted that, but they're on it this moment," Hamlin said. [38:05]

He mentioned how the #14 team is making the most of them being the only SHR car in the playoffs. Denny Hamlin suggested that in the case of Chase Briscoe and Noah Gragson, while both cars go on the track at the same time, Briscoe's crew chief can have a set of changes that he'd want to try on the #14 but put them on Gragson's car.

Hamlin remarked that except for Josh Berry, who finished 4 laps down, all SHR drivers had a good day in Bristol.

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Chase Briscoe believes the #14 team is now a championship contender

Following the race at Bristol, from which he booked his place in the Round of 12, Chase Briscoe opened up on how he rates the #14 team in the playoffs.

Briscoe said that the way they won at Darlington, along with their competitive side being as good as it has been over the last four weeks, and them making the Round of 12, wasn't surprising to him at all.

In fact, Briscoe went on to make a claim about what he could achieve at the end of the 2024 season, as he said:

"I feel like we're, nobody believes me, but I feel like we're legitimate championship contenders."

It's worth mentioning that Chase Briscoe has previously remarked that the #14 team could potentially go on to replicate Tony Stewart's 2011 championship run.

With that said, it'll be interesting to see how Chase Briscoe fares in the Round of 12, and just how far he goes into the playoffs.