Joe Gibbs Racing drivers have not had a great time in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series, as indicated by their standings. The first seven places are taken over by drivers from Toyota, with Brandon Jones at 8th, being the only one in the Top 10 representing Joe Gibbs and Chevrolet. It seemed like Jones was set for a big boost in Rockingham as he looked poised to bag the win, but fell short and had to settle for second. While he remains short of trying to compete for the top spot, Jones is positive about the rest of the season.
Brandon Jones on the key takeaways from his runner-up finish
Jones finished second in a race that saw the final stage dominated by his teammate, William Sawalich. This was Jones’ second top-five finish of the season.
“I want to continue to try to elevate that next bar and keep raising the bar at this company over here at JGR,” he said in a post-race interview.
“We just got to keep fighting.” @BrandonJonesRac and the No. 20 team look to keep their heads up after Jones ran out of time chasing down William Sawalich for the win. pic.twitter.com/xCtpkXxXAd
— Frontstretch (@Frontstretch) April 4, 2026
He claimed he had the speed, but he was out of laps and out of time.
“I think our cars are close, but I don’t think we can win every single week right now, either. So we got to keep tacking and keep fighting, but this is fantastic momentum. We’re doing all the right things. We just got to keep fighting and keep trying to get some speed out of these Supras,” Jones described.
It’s worth mentioning that Jones is currently 175 points off the leader, Justin Allgaier of JR Motorsports. In fact, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver is behind three JRM drivers, Carson Kvapil and Sammy Smith, which is interesting because Jones was driving for JRM between 2023 and 2024.
And the only reason he left was that he didn’t think he was gonna win races at JRM.
Jones came back to Joe Gibbs Racing for a key reason
In an interview from 2025, Brandon Jones opened up on his return to JGR. After driving for Coach Gibbs’ team from 2018 to 2022, Jones packed his bags for JRM. At JGR, he had won 5 races, but was unsuccessful at JRM.
“I thought going over there to JR Motorsports that we were going to win races. I believed in the company, and I felt like they believed in myself and that we were going to have a couple of good years, and we could never put it together,” he said.
He admitted that there were times while he was at JRM when he felt they were superior to JGR.
Jones is now a key part of the JGR team and will be their hope of trying to compete against the dominance of JRM. He will be hoping to showcase consistency and keep finishing in pole positions to put pressure on the likes of Justin Allgaier, Jesse Love, and Corey Day.
