Harvick qualifies on the pole at Indy

Kevin Harvick qualified on the pole position for the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard on Sunday with a lap of 48.44 seconds and 185.766 mph. This was Harvick’s third pole position at The Brickyard.

The Stewart-Haas Racing driver noted the importance of the starting spot in order to win the race.

“It’s very important,” Harvick said to PRN Radio. “I wish we had that first pit stall to go with it to cap off the pole with our Mobil 1 Ford Mustang, but still a great job by our guys. Track position is going to be the name of the game today, having things fall your way but you’re still going have to have the handling of your car throughout the long runs in order to keep yourself out front and to have the option to put two tires on at any point.”

“So there’s a number of things that’s going to come into play. The cloud cover obviously has changed things a little bit compared to the bright sun we had yesterday, so the track conditions are a little bit better today, so we’ll see how that affects the handling of the car.”

Track position isn’t the only thing that’s important today. This race is also the last chance for bubble drivers to make the Playoffs that start next weekend in Las Vegas.

Paul Menard qualified second, Clint Bowyer was third, Jimmie Johnson was fifth and Daniel Hemric qualified 11th. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will start 12th, Daniel Suarez was 18th and Ryan Newman will start in 22nd. All of these drivers face possible elimination in order to compete for the championship.

NBCSN coverage of the Big Machine Vodka 400 starts at 12:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN. They will switch over to regular NBC with Countdown To Green at 1:30 p.m. ET.

With potential threatening weather in the area and the potential for more, the start time of the race has been moved up to 2:05 p.m. ET.

Stages will be 50/50/60 laps to make up the 160 lap race.

Official Results

1. Kevin Harvick
2. Paul Menard
3. Clint Bowyer
4. Joey Logano
5. Jimmie Johnson
6. Brad Keselowski
7. Kyle Busch
8. Kurt Busch
9. Ryan Blaney
10. Aric Almirola
11. Daniel Hemric
12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
13. Alex Bowman
14. Erik Jones
15. Bubba Wallace
16. Chris Buscher
17. David Ragan
18. Austin Dillon
19. Kyle Larson
20. Daniel Suarez
21. Michael McDowell
22. Ryan Newman
23. Ryan Preece
24. Chase Elliott
25. Ty Dillon
26. Matt DiBenedetto
27. Martin Truex Jr
28. Matt Tifft
29. William Byron
30. Corey LaJoie
31. Landon Cassill
32. Parker Kligerman
33. Denny Hamlin
34. Ross Chastain
35. B.J. McLeod
36. Ryan Sieg
37. Reed Sorenson
38. Garrett Smithley
39. Josh Bilicki
40. J.J. Yeley