Kyle Larson prevailed over teammate Chase Elliott to clinch the Busch Light Pole Award at Richmond Raceway. It’s his first Cup Series pole of the season and his 17th career pole in 338 career starts.
“Definitely helps for sure,” Larson said after qualifying. “I think the No. 1 pit stall here means a lot, yeah, happy to do that.
“Chase got real close there,” he continued, “so I was a bit nervous. But yeah, it’s an awesome day for Hendrick Motorsports.
He concluded by saying, “Good to get another pole. We’ll see if it translates into tomorrow’s race.”
Chevrolet captured the top four spots with Ross Chastain (120.059 mph) third-fastest, followed by Alex Bowman (119.861 mph). Bubba Wallace (119.819 mph) completed the top five in the No. 23 Toyota.
Todd Gilliland (119.760 mph), starting sixth, was the highest-qualifying Ford.
“It was a solid day,” Gilliland said, “but we still need to keep working on a bunch of stuff, especially kind of longer runs because everyone gets to a point where they’re not comfortable. We made good adjustments,” he said, “improved our starting spot, into the second round, I thought all of that stuff – definitely multiple positives to take from today.”
Martin Truex Jr. (119.585 mph), Ty Gibbs (119.517 mph), Austin Cindric (119.111 mph) and Joey Logano (119.069 mph) rounded out the top 10.
You can tune into the Cup Series Toyota Owners 400 at 7 p.m. ET Sunday on FOX with radio coverage provided by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Starting Lineup:
