[media-credit name=”Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”243″][/media-credit]Jeff Gordon captured the poll for Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway with a lap of 191.624 mph (49.973 secs).

“I’m just so proud of this DuPont Chevrolet team. We needed something to boost our morale and something positive because we’ve had a rough year so far. This is a surprise. We did not expect to be sitting here right now talking to you about a pole. I think it’s so ironic that we’ve got the DuPont paint scheme, which is celebrating 20 years together this year and here we sit on the pole for 20 straight years.” Gordon said.

This is Gordon’s 71st career pole and his first since this race last season.  This also makes the 20 consecutive years with a pole.

“Oh, thank you. We look forward to that and what’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s going to be fun.” Gordon said.

AJ Allmendinger qualified second.

“The Shell/Pennzoil Dodge qualifying run was a little surprising. I didn’t get to make a full-blown Q (qualifying) run yesterday, so we weren’t really sure what we had. It had nothing to do with me.” Allmendinger said.

Marcos Ambrose qualified third.

“We missed the pole by two-one hundredths. I am proud of Todd Parrott, he works really hard at these Superspeedway events. He really knows what to do. We just keep getting better and better at these race tracks for the King and for his whole Richard Petty Motorsports team.” Ambrose said.

Aric Almirola qualified fourth and Kasey Kahne qualified fifth.

The series points leader Greg Biffle qualified sixth.

“I am not sure if that will hold up on the front row. The pole speed was a tenth-and-a-half faster than what we went. We had cloud cover and the best conditions and I thought the car had a little more speed.” Biffle said.