BRISTOL, Tenn. — As Joe Gibbs Racing steamrolled through the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, the organization showed that the 2025 championship very well could go through JGR.

But then there’s the obvious other factor — in the five years since Phoenix Raceway has held the championship race, JGR has not won the championship. Hendrick Motorsports won the first two and then Team Penske has won the last three.

So forgive JGR drivers if they hesitate a little in saying they are the ones to beat, even though Chase Briscoe opened the playoffs winning at Darlington, followed by Denny Hamlin winning at World Wide Technology Raceway (Gateway) and then Christopher Bell capturing the victory at Bristol on a night where non-playoff teammate Ty Gibbs led the most laps.

“It’s all about Phoenix, right?” Hamlin said. “That’s where they crown the champion.

“I don’t know the last time we won there. So we’ll see.”

The last time JGR won was in the spring when Bell earned his second consecutive spring race victory at the track. But the last time JGR won in the fall race came with Hamlin in 2019.

“The bad news is we’re not running Phoenix next week and there’s still a long way to go to get there,” Bell said after his Bristol win. “I can promise you, whenever we get to Phoenix, it’s not going to be a runaway. No matter who’s in that final four [for the title], it’s always a dogfight. It’s always a good race.

“We are in a really good spot right now — we as in the Toyota group, and specifically Joe Gibbs Racing. But we’ve got a long way to go to get to Phoenix, and it’s going to be a hard road, and everybody knows that.”

All three of the Toyota organizations – JGR, 23XI Racing and Legacy Motor Club – have appeared stronger over the last several weeks. Toyota Racing Development President Tyler Gibbs (no relations to Joe Gibbs) indicated that their engine department – TRD provides engines to their teams – has potentially played a role.

“We haven’t brought specifically a spec upgrade, but we have made some minor improvements to the performance over the course of the last six or eight weeks,” Tyler Gibbs said after Hamlin’s win.

While Bell provided the caveat of the championship still being seven races away with so much possible to change between now and then, he wouldn’t argue with the premise that to win the championship, any opponent would have to go through JGR.

“It sure appears to be that way,” Bell said. “It’s just all the Toyotas are super fast right now. I think I said it last week in my postrace interview that this is the best race cars I’ve had to drive in the Cup Series compared to the competition in my career.”

The speed of the Toyotas have not gone unnoticed by the competition. Ford driver Joey Logano, after Gateway, admitted that Toyota appears to have the edge. 

“They are ridiculously fast,” Logano said. “They’ve got a lot of grip, and they’ve got a lot of horsepower. A lot. We’ve got a lot of work to do to catch up. They’re really, really fast.

“We’ve got to be absolutely perfect in every category to contend. And we need them to make mistakes, which they do, so we have potential to do it. It’s just going to be really challenging.”

Logano wasn’t throwing shade on JGR when talking about making mistakes. Hamlin’s team left a wheel loose at Bristol, which will likely result in two-race suspensions for two of his crew members. Gibbs missed the entrance to pit road at Bristol.

A week earlier, Briscoe had to rally to finish second but saw a potential win slip away for a variety of issues.

“Our weakness was just the sloppiness, right?” Briscoe said. “Whether it was me behind the wheel or pit road.”

It was just a week prior to Bristol that Bell went on a short NSFW rant on his in-car radio about the team’s pit strategy. He said the day before his Bristol victory that part of the frustration was seeing his teammates win.

“If your teammates are out there winning races and leading laps, that shows that the cars are capable, we have the equipment,” Bell said. “I haven’t been leading laps. And I haven’t been winning races. So there’s obviously something going on that is keeping us from doing that.

“The teammates are just the barometer and the fact that they’re having success and doing what needs to be done means I should be there. And I haven’t been.”

His Pro Football Hall of Fame car owner for the most part shrugs off such outbursts.

“I’ve been on the sideline — I’ve heard some outbursts,” Joe Gibbs said. “We’ve had some outbursts in our competition meeting.

“I’ve learned when you’re around sports and things don’t go your way … guys put so much into it that you’ve got to say to yourself that’s going to happen every now and then.”

The other thing Gibbs says to himself is echoing the drivers about the season still has a several weeks remaining.

“We’ve got a lot of things going on right now, but we all know this: In our sport it’s week to week, and it’s going to start all over in six days,” Joe Gibbs said. “You can count on that.”