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Jared Turner

4 Big Changes Coming To Joe Gibbs Racing For NASCAR Season

With the 2025 NASCAR season right around the corner, here’s a quick look at four significant changes coming to Joe Gibbs Racing — one of the NASCAR Cup Series’ premier organizations.

The totality of these changes will affect not only JGR’s NASCAR Cup Series efforts but also the organization’s NASCAR Xfinity Series program.

Ready to learn more?

1. A New Driver in the No. 19 NASCAR Cup Series Car

As has already been well-documented, JGR has tabbed Chase Briscoe to replace the now-retired-from-full-time-driving Martin Truex Jr. in its No. 19 Toyota. Briscoe went full-time NASCAR Cup Series racing in 2021 with Stewart-Haas Racing and spent the last four seasons with SHR leading up to the organization suspending operations at the end of 2024.

Highlighting Briscoe’s time at SHR was a single, playoff-clinching win in both 2022 and 2024. JGR’s No. 19 car, which Truex drove to 15 wins and two runner-up points finishes over six seasons, will provide Briscoe a better platform for success.

2. A New Crew Chief for Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs

Both Hamlin and Gibbs will have a new face high atop their respective pit box in 2025, but neither is a stranger to JGR. Calling the shots for Hamlin’s No. 11 team will be Chris Gayle, who spent the last two seasons as Cup Series crew chief for Ty Gibbs after leading Gibbs to the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship. Gayle replaces Chris Gabehart, who JGR promoted to competition director after six years as Hamlin’s pit boss.

Gabehart’s promotion and Gayle’s move to the No. 11 team created a crew chief vacancy on Ty Gibbs’ No. 54 team, which Tyler Allen will now lead. Last season, Allen — who’s held various roles within JGR the last 10 years — was the crew chief of JGR’s No. 20 NASCAR Xfinity Series team for eight of the team’s nine wins on the way to a runner-up finish in owner points.

Gibbs showed noted improvement from his first year of Cup Series competition to Year Two, during which he collected 12 top-10s (including eight top-fives) and two poles while leading 417 laps and securing a playoff berth.

3. No More FedEx as a Primary Sponsor for Hamlin

Hamlin’s primary sponsor since the year before he went full-time NASCAR Cup Series racing in 2006, FedEx is no longer with Hamlin and JGR. The change comes after the sponsor announced on the final weekend of the 2024 season that it wouldn’t return to the team in 2025.

Without FedEx, which first paired with Hamlin in 2005 when he entered seven Cup Series races for JGR, Hamlin’s team will carry Sport Clips, Interstate Batteries, Mavis Tire & Brakes, and possibly other companies as co-primary sponsors on the No. 11 Toyota.

4. A Revamped NASCAR Xfinity Series Driver Roster

JGR has a retooled NASCAR Xfinity Series driver lineup for 2025. The changes include Taylor Gray taking over as full-time driver of the organization’s No. 54 Toyota in NASCAR’s No. 2 division. The young New Mexico native spent last season as a full-time competitor in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series while making select starts in JGR’s No. 54 Xfinity Series car.

Also new to the JGR Xfinity Series roster is William Sawalich, who will drive the team’s No. 18 Xfinity car full time in 2025. Sawalich won the 2023 and 2024 ARCA Menards Series East championship for JGR. The Minnesota teenager made his Xfinity Series debut last year at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Back in the saddle as part of JGR’s Xfinity Series driver roster after spending the last two seasons at JR Motorsports is Brandon Jones, who will drive the No. 20 Xfinity Series car. Over a five-year run with JGR from 2018 to 2022, Jones went to Victory Lane a total of five times. He qualified for the playoffs all five years and finished a career-best sixth in the 2020 Xfinity Series standings on the strength of a career-best three-win season.

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