Denny Hamlin secured the penultimate NASCAR Cup Series’ Busch Light Pole Award of the 2026 season for the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, October 31.
The event’s starting lineup was determined through an on-track qualifying session that consisted of a single-car, two-lap qualifying format. During the session, each of the 37 competitors vying for 37 starting spots cycled around Martinsville twice to post the fastest lap amongst one another. The competitor who posted the fastest lap earned pole position. During the session, Hamlin, who was the sixth-fastest competitor in practice on Saturday prior to qualifying, utilized his two-lap qualifying session to post his fastest lap at 98.492 mph in 19.226 seconds. Hamlin’s lap was enough for the Chesterfield, Virginia, native and driver of the No. 11 King’s Hawaiian/Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE entry to secure the top-starting spot for Sunday’s main event.
With the pole, Hamlin notched his 54th career pole position in the NASCAR Cup Series division, the sixth at Martinsville and of the 2026 Cup season and his first since Las Vegas Motor Speedway in early October. Hamlin is currently ranked in the runner-up spot in the 2026 Chase standings and trails points leader Kyle Larson by 73 points with two Chase events remaining until this season’s conclusion. With a strong qualifying lap to claim the pole position, Hamlin vows to strive at his fullest to reel in his deficit and remain in contention for his first elusive Cup Series championship.
“It was a great lap,” Hamlin said. “Truthfully, [I] kind of hit all the marks I wanted to hit. The car did a lot of the things I needed it to do there on that first lap. It was a great job by the race team. Great adjustments there. We’ll see what we got tomorrow. We’re gonna give it all we got. All we got is all we got. I wish I had a little bit more, but we just need to control our own destiny tomorrow and that’s getting a best day we possibly can. Wherever the chips fall from there, they do.”
Hamlin will share the front row with teammate Ty Gibbs, the latter of whom posted the second-fastest qualifying lap at 98.241 mph in 19.275 seconds. Kyle Larson, the 2026 Chase leader and winner of last weekend’s event at Talladega Superspeedway, will start in third place with a lap of 98.114 mph in 19.300 seconds. Like Hamlin, Larson controls his destiny on potentially clinching his third Cup Series championship at the conclusion of Sunday’s main event at Martinsville and a week prior to next weekend’s finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“[I’m] Happy to start in the first couple of rows,” Larson said. “Hopefully, we can stay in the hunt all day. I’m looking at [clinching the title early]. Denny starts ahead of me, so he’s really, really good here. He was one position away from a max points day earlier this year. I’m more looking at like how do I keep [my car] upfront to leave myself a [points] buffer for next week. We’ll see how the race plays out.”
Team Penske’s Austin Cindric and Joey Logano will start in the top five while Ryan Preece, Alex Bowman, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Josh Berry complete the top-10 starting grid, respectively.
With eight of 16 Chase contenders (Hamlin, Gibbs, Larson, Cindric, Logano, Preece, Byron and Elliott) starting in the top 10, the remaining Chasers that include Chase Briscoe, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Daniel Suarez and Carson Hocevar will start 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 18th, 24th and 25th, respectively.
Notably, Cody Ware was the lone competitor who did not post a qualifying lap due to damage repairs made to his primary entry. Earlier in practice, Ware ran into the rear of Ross Chastain as the incident also nearly collected Larson.
With 37 competitors vying for 37 starting spots, all made the main event.
Martinsville – Starting Lineup:
- Denny Hamlin, 98.492 mph, 19.226 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 98.241 mph, 19.275 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 98.114 mph, 19.300 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 97.987 mph, 19.325 seconds
- Joey Logano, 97.962 mph, 19.330 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 97.896 mph, 19.343 seconds
- Alex Bowman, 97.840 mph, 19.354 seconds
- William Byron, 97.770 mph, 19.368 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 97.714 mph, 19.379 seconds
- Josh Berry, 97.709 mph, 19.380 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 97.699 mph, 19.382 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 97.638 mph, 19.394 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 97.538 mph, 19.414 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 97.528 mph, 19.416 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 97.442 mph, 19.433 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 97.392 mph, 19.443 seconds
- Austin Hill, 97.362 mph, 19.449 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 97.322 mph, 19.457 seconds
- Connor Zilisch, 97.158 mph, 19.490 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 97.133 mph, 19.495 seconds
- Cole Custer, 97.078 mph, 19.506 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 97.068 mph, 19.508 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 96.993 mph, 19.523 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 96.924 mph, 19.537 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 96.909 mph, 19.540 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 96.849 mph, 19.552 seconds
- Riley Herbst, 96.835 mph, 19.555 seconds
- Ty Dillon, 96.815 mph, 19.559 seconds
- Shane van Gisbergen, 96.691 mph, 19.584 seconds
- Erik jones, 96.671 mph, 19.588 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 96.514 mph, 19.620 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 96.494 mph, 19.624 seconds
- Zane Smith, 96.401 mph, 19.643 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 96.107 mph, 19.703 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 95.995 mph, 19.726 seconds
- Josh Bilicki, 94.661 mph, 20.004 seconds
- Cody Ware, 0.000 mph, 0.000 seconds
*Bold indicates Chase Drivers
The 2026 Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway is scheduled to occur on Sunday, November 1, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX.
