Denny Hamlin added another Busch Light Pole Award to his NASCAR Cup Series resume. His latest accomplishment occurred on Saturday, July 4, in the series’ return to Chicagoland Speedway for the eero 400.
The event’s starting lineup was determined through an on-track qualifying session that consisted of a single-car, single-lap qualifying format. During the session, each of the 39 competitors vying for 39 starting spots cycled around Chicagoland once to post the fastest lap amongst one another. The competitor who posted the single fastest lap was awarded the pole position.
During the session, Hamlin, who was the fourth-fastest competitor during Friday’s practice session and the 21st competitor to qualify, clocked in his fastest single lap at 178.241 mph in 30.296 seconds. The lap was enough for Hamlin to maintain the top-starting spot and notch the fourth pole position of the 2026 season for himself and his No. 11 Progressive/Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE team.
With the pole, Hamlin notched his 52nd NASCAR Cup Series career pole (ninth all-time) for his 740th start, his third over the previous five events and his first ever at Chicagoland. He is also the first competitor to achieve a Cup pole at both Chicagoland Speedway and the Chicago Street Course, a feat that occurred from 2023 to 2025.
Hamlin, who despite is coming off a 26th-place result at Sonoma Raceway, is currently leading the championship standings by a single point over his 23XI Racing competitor, Tyler Reddick. As Hamlin looks to add another victory in Joliet, Illinois, to his accomplished resume, he also shifts his focus on maintaining his on-track competitiveness against the competition and his co-owned entries at 23XI Racing for the remaining eight events on the regular-season stretch prior to his championship bid.
“I’ll be honest with you, I got extremely lucky,” Hamlin said on Prime Video. “Anyone that goes out right now, beats me. I’m very confident in that. We got lucky that these last 12 guys just got stuck in the sun, and the track definitely is a very temperature sensitive track that it gets a little bit of sun on it, and it just slows way up. I think we got really fortunate there with the timing of that, and we hit our lap pretty decent considering where we went out. Really happy with the result there, the whole Progressive team, and we’ll definitely start from there. My goal was P12 today.”
Hamlin will share the front row with Kyle Larson, the latter of whom posted his fastest single lap at 178.235 mph in 30.297 seconds and just missed the opportunity to knock off Hamlin from the top of the qualifying charts by 0.001 seconds. Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski, along with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ty Gibbs, will start in the top five, respectively. Christopher Bell and Chase Briscoe, teammates to Hamlin and Gibbs, will start sixth and seventh, respectively, ahead of Bubba Wallace, while Chase Elliott and William Byron completed the top-10 starting grid.
Tyler Reddick will start in 13th place, one spot behind Alex Bowman, with Bowman being the latest race winner at Chicagoland (2019). Shane van Gisbergen, winner of this past weekend’s Cup event at Sonoma Raceway, will start in 30th place and Riley Herbst, who was the fastest in Friday’s practice, will start in 18th place.
Notably, Michael McDowell was not allowed to post a qualifying lap because his No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 car failed technical inspection three times. As a result, McDowell will be forced to serve a drive-through penalty through pit road after taking the green flag, and his car chief has been ejected for the remainder of this weekend. Cody Ware was also unable to post a qualifying lap after he tagged the outside wall entering the backstretch during his session. Both will round out the 38-car field for Sunday’s main event at Chicagoland.
With 39 competitors vying for 39 starting spots, all made the main event.
Chicagoland – Qualifying Position, Best Speed, Best Time:
- Denny Hamlin, 178.241 mph, 30.296 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 178.235 mph, 30.297 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 178.153 mph, 30.311 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 178.089 mph, 30.322 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 178.083 mph, 30.323 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 177.643 mph, 30.398 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 177.637 mph, 30.399 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 177.515 mph, 30.420 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 177.491 mph, 30.424 seconds
- William Byron, 177.212 mph, 30.472 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 177.160 mph, 30.481 seconds
- Alex Bowman, 177.038 mph, 30.502 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 176.916 mph, 30.523 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 176.887 mph, 30.528 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 176.869 mph, 30.531 seconds
- Zane Smith, 176.748 mph, 30.552 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 176.678 mph, 30.564 seconds
- Riley Herbst, 176.609 mph, 176.609 mph, 30.576 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 176.586 mph, 30.580 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 176.304 mph, 30.629 seconds
- Connor Zilisch, 176.286 mph, 30.632 seconds
- Erik Jones, 175.993 mph, 30.683 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 175.861 mph, 30.706 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 175.496 mph, 30.770 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 175.444 mph, 30.779 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 175.353 mph, 30.795 seconds
- Ty Dillon, 175.251 mph, 30,813 seconds
- Corey Heim, 175.171 mph, 30.827 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 174.695 mph, 30.911 seconds
- Shane van Gisbergen, 174.413 mph, 30.961 seconds
- Joey Logano, 174.216 mph, 30.996 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 174.076 mph, 31.021 seconds
- Cole Custer, 173.779 mph, 31.074 seconds
- Josh Berry, 173.327 mph, 31.155 seconds
- Austin Hill, 173.238 mph, 31.171 seconds
- JJ Yeley, 168.914 mph, 31.969 seconds
- Cody Ware, 0.000 mph, 0.000 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 0.000 mph, 0.000 seconds
The 2026 eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, July 5, at 6 p.m. ET on TNT Sports, MRN Radio, SiriusXM, and HBO MAX.
