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
- Kevin Harvick
- Paul Menard
- Clint Bowyer
- Joey Logano
- Jimmie Johnson
- Brad Keselowski
- Kyle Busch
- Kurt Busch
- Ryan Blaney
- Aric Almirola
- Daniel Hemric
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr
- Alex Bowman
- Erik Jones
- Bubba Wallace
- Chris Buscher
- David Ragan
- Austin Dillon
- Kyle Larson
- Daniel Suarez
- Michael McDowell
- Ryan Newman
- Ryan Preece
- Chase Elliott
- Ty Dillon
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Martin Truex Jr
- Matt Tifft
- William Byron
- Corey LaJoie
- Landon Cassill
- Parker Kligerman
- Denny Hamlin
- Ross Chastain
- B.J. McLeod
- Ryan Sieg
- Reed Sorenson
- Garrett Smithley
- Josh Bilicki
- J.J. Yeley
