Alex Bowman claimed the Busch Light Pole Award for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway during qualifying Saturday afternoon.
He topped the speed chart with a lap of 31.982 at 168.845 mph lap in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsport Chevrolet. It is his sixth career Cup Series pole, his first this season and the fifth Homestead pole for Hendrick Motorsports.
“There were some cars not so great on the short run and really fast on the long run and we were kind of the opposite of that practice, we were really faster in the short run and not great on the long-run stuff so I knew qualifying was going to be really important because of that and that we had some work to do for tomorrow,” Bowman said.
“But for me,” Bowman continued, “I had a pretty clear-cut plan for qualifying and I thought I was able to execute that pretty well and my race car gave me what I needed to do that.”
He will be joined on the front row by Wood Brothers driver, Josh Berry, who scored his first Cup Series win last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Noah Gragson (168.219 mph), Chase Briscoe (168.140 mph) and William Byron (168.046 mph) rounded out the top five.
“Momentum is a wonderful thing, right,” Berry said after qualifying. “Yeah, for sure. I’m just really proud of everyone on this 21 team. The car has been really solid. The guys are doing a great job. We’re executing our Saturdays and now we just have to translate it into a solid day tomorrow. This track is really fun. I felt good about my car in practice. We got in some traffic and we’ve got a few things to work on to be better, but, overall, a great effort.”
He will be joined on the front row by Wood Brothers driver, Josh Berry, who scored his first Cup Series win last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Noah Gragson (168.219 mph), Chase Briscoe (168.140 mph) and William Byron (168.046 mph) rounded out the top five.
Ryan Blaney, John Hunter Nemechek, Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace and AJ Allmendinger completed the top 10.
Cup Series Lineup for the Series Straight Talk Wireless 400
- 1. Alex Bowman, No. 48
- 2. Josh Berry, No. 21
- 3. Noah Gragson, No. 4
- 4. Chase Briscoe, No. 19
- 5. William Byron, No. 24
- 6. Ryan Blaney, No. 12
- 7. John-Hunter Nemechek, No. 42
- 8. Austin Cindric, No. 2
- 9. Bubba Wallace, No. 23
- 10. AJ Allmendinger, No. 16
- 11. Chris Buescher, No. 17
- 12. Joey Logano, No. 22
- 13. Ty Gibbs, No. 54
- 14. Kyle Larson, No. 5
- 15. Carson Hocevar, No. 77
- 16. Christopher Bell, No. 20
- 17. Zane Smith, No. 38
- 18. Chase Elliott, No. 9
- 19. Riley Herbst, No. 35
- 20. Justin Haley, No. 7
- 21. Tyler Reddick, No. 45
- 22. Kyle Busch, No. 8
- 23. Denny Hamlin, No. 11
- 24. Cole Custer, No. 41
- 25. Ross Chastain, No. 1
- 26. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47
- 27. Michael McDowell, No. 71
- 28. Erik Jones, No. 43
- 29. Todd Gilliland, No. 34
- 30. Austin Dillon, No. 3
- 31. Ryan Preece, No. 6
- 32. Brad Keselowski, No. 6
- 33. Daniel Suarez, No. 99
- 34. Ty Dillon, No. 10
- 35. Shane Van Gisbergen, No. 88
- 36. Cody Ware, No. 51
- 37. JJ Yeley, No. 44
The Cup Series takes center stage Sunday afternoon with the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at 3 p.m. ET on FS1 and Max, with radio coverage on MRN and NASCAR SiriusXM.
