Johnson captures the GEICO 400 pole at Chicagoland

[media-credit name=”Credit: Tyler Barrick/Getty Images” align=”alignright” width=”231″][/media-credit]Jimmie Johnson captured the pole for Sunday’s GEICO 400 at Chicagoland Speedway with a lap of 182.865 MPH (29.530 secs).

This was Johnson’s second pole of the season and 27th of his career.

“It’s too early in the Chase to be over-the-top excited or down-and-out if you didn’t qualify like you wanted to today. Qualifying makes the race so much easier for you. You know you’re pit stall is going to be right and clearly track position at the start of the race is going to be in your favor.” Johnson said.  “I’m very happy that we got a pole. Qualifying isn’t typically my strong suit but we laid down a good one today.”

Aric Almirola qualified second with his new crew and crew chief.

“Todd Parrott brought me a really good car this weekend. It was good in race trim and as soon as we swapped over to qualifying trim it felt just as good.” Almirola said. “There are a lot of people motivated right now at Richard Petty Motorsports for sure. Todd Parrott and his whole crew coming over to our car has been great. This week there has been a lot of work going on in the shop and a lot of people with a lot to prove, myself included.”

Matt Kenseth third, Dale Earnhardt Jr. fourth and Carl Edwards qualified fifth.

“We wanted to go out a little earlier in the day when we thought the track would be a little cooler and that was Jimmy’s strategy and we took advantage of that and got a decent lap and a good starting spot.” Kenseth said.

Earnhardt Jr. had to make a engine change and will start in the back on Sunday.

“Yes, we have to change the engine and go to the back of the field. I don’t think we are super concerned. We had a great car in practice and qualified really well so we showed we have good speed. Fortunately, this is a race track that there are multiple pit strategies and it’s not a really simple straight forward pit strategy to call.” said crew chief Steve Letarte.

Series points leader Denny Hamlin starts eighth.

“Going out late it’s tough to really get a good lap. It will only be a tenth or so off the pole. I left that much on the race track. So, we’re excited about the speed this car got.” Hamlin said.