Denny Hamlin won the Busch Light Pole Award at Nashville Superspeedway Saturday afternoon after the final round of qualifying was canceled due to rain.
He was fastest in Round 1 with a lap of 29.848 seconds at 160.413 mph in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Hamlin was awarded the pole, the 35th of his career, his second this season, and will lead the field to green for Sunday’s Ally 400.
“It was a great run for us,” Hamlin said when addressing the media after qualifying. “We didn’t start off practice that stellar but with every run we made we just kept getting better and better. Obviously today, they tuned it up better than it was yesterday.”
Team Penske’s Joey Logano will join Hamlin on the front row after a fast lap of 160.107 mph in his No. 22 Ford.
“I really didn’t think I was that fast, that’s for sure,” he said. “Good changes, I guess, at least for qualifying, got the car doing the right things at least for one lap. We’ll see what that means later on, but we’ll take that and we’ll go from there.”
Kyle Larson (159.963 mph), the defending race winner, and Chase Elliott (159.931 mph) will represent Hendrick Motorsports in Row 2. Daniel Suárez kept the momentum going after his first career Cup Series win at Sonoma Raceway on June 12, and will start fifth.
Ryan Blaney, Ross Chastain, Kevin Harvick, Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr. round out the top 10 starters for Sunday’s race.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch was unable to complete a qualifying run and will start last after spinning in Turn 3 and hitting the outside wall during Round 1.
Starting Lineup:
- Denny Hamlin
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Larson
- Chase Elliott
- Daniel Suarez
- Ryan Blaney
- Ross Chastain
- Kevin Harvick
- Christopher Bell
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Aric Almirola
- Alex Bowman
- William Byron
- AJ Allmendinger
- Chase Buescher
- Tyler Reddick
- Cole Custer
- Michael McDowell
- Kurt Busch
- Austin Dillon
- Justin Haley
- Corey Lajoie
- Erik Jones
- Austin Cindric
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Harrison Burton
- Brad Keselowski
- Chase Briscoe
- Ty Dillon
- Bubba Wallace
- Cody Ware
- JJ Yeley
- Todd Gilliland
- Josh Bilicki
- BJ McLeod
- Kyle Busch
