NASCAR

3 Heavy Hitters Who’ve Endured A Perfectly Miserable Start To The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Season

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By
Jared Turner
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Jared Turner Sports Editor

Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.

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Sports Editor

Published27 Feb 2025

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Brad Keselowski and Ty Gibbs

While the NASCAR Cup Series season is off to an amazing start for some drivers, others — including three heavy hitters, in particular — have fared quite poorly.

Let’s quickly review what’s gone wrong so far in 2025 for Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski and Ty Gibbs.

Chase Briscoe

Briscoe’s season — at least unofficially — began in style when he captured the pole for the Daytona 500. But Briscoe, who’s in Year One with Joe Gibbs Racing after four years at Stewart-Haas Racing, has encountered nothing but trouble since snaring P1 on the grid for The Great American Race.

After finishing fourth in the Daytona 500 largely thanks to a last-lap crash he helped trigger, Briscoe later learned that his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing car flunked post-race inspection due to spoiler irregularities.

The outcome? A stiff penalty of 100 driver points and 10 playoff points that currently has Briscoe dead last in the NASCAR Cup Series standings. That’s right: Briscoe is actually listed with negative 51 points, after finishing 21st this past weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The team has scheduled a formal appeals hearing set for early March, but getting the desired outcome seems unlikely.

Suffice to say, Briscoe’s first year with JGR is not going so well.

His only consolation? The season is still quite young.

Brad Keselowski

Involved in accidents at both Daytona and Atlanta, Keselowski is mired deep in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.

How deep? Well, he’s all the way down in 33rd — not exactly where the 2012 series champion hoped to be two races into his first season as the co-owner of a three-car organization (RFK Racing added Ryan Preece to its driver roster in the offseason, expanding its lineup from two drivers to three.).

Keselowski recorded an especially disappointing result on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, finishing 39th out of 39 cars. He saw his day end due to a broken radiator on his No. 6 Ford, which had nowhere to go and crashed hard into Chase Elliott’s out-of-control No. 9 Chevrolet with 110 laps still left.

“Somebody got into the 9 car and put him into the fence off of Turn 4,” Keselowski said. “I saw it and lifted for that, but he seemed to regroup and was fine. As soon as I went to take off again, he blew a right rear rear or broke a toe link and hooked left right in front of us. So, we hit him trying not to hit him.”

Ty Gibbs

After making steady improvements from Year One to Year Two as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, Gibbs certainly faces heightened expectations for 2025 and Year Three.

So far, though, the grandson of legendary team owner Joe Gibbs has experienced nothing but rotten luck. In contention for a decent finish in the Daytona 500, Gibbs got swallowed up in the final-lap crash that eliminated numerous frontrunners.

Somehow, though, Gibbs still managed to finish 16th at Daytona.

Atlanta was another story. Collected in a multi-car wreck that a Daniel Suarez spin ignited, Gibbs ended the day with a DNF and a 32nd-place result. Headed into this weekend’s first road course race of the NASCAR Cup Series season, Gibbs is a lowly 29th in points.

That’s a 14-position drop from where he finished in the 2024 standings.

In case you missed it, here’s the wreck at Atlanta involving Gibbs. It damaged his No. 54 car so badly he couldn’t steer it correctly.

If you watch the full video below, you’ll see Gibbs struggling to get his vehicle pointed in the right direction.