With hands out the window in attempt to block the air and gain whatever speed they could, a full field of 40 NASCAR Cup drivers took on Talladega Superspeedway in Saturday’s qualifying session.
In the end, Michael McDowell drove the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet to pole position with a fast lap of 52.481s. This is McDowell’s eighth career pole, and all of them have come in the last two years for the veteran driver. This is also the third time in the last four Talladega races where McDowell has earned pole position, doing so with two different race teams.
“Oh it matters, for sure,” smiled McDowell as he and his team celebrated the pole position. “It’s something we’ve been working really hard at. Just getting more speed in our superspeedway cars. Really proud to have Carolina Handling on the car for their debut race with us. To get a pole is awesome. I think everything went right. The cloud did come, the wind hit just right, but everybody back at Hendrick Engines shop — thank you guys so much. They’ve been working really hard.
“It’s no secret that the Fords have been kicking our butts at these kinds of places, and we feel like we had some areas where we needed to gain. Felt like we gained them, and sitting here with a pole is awesome. Hats off to everyone at Chevy and Spire Motorsports. It’s not a win but we’ll take it.”
Watch: Superspeedway ace: Michael McDowell claims Talladega pole
Chase Briscoe will start second, leading all playoff drivers. Kyle Busch was third, Austin Cindric fourth, Ryan Preece fifth, Josh Berry sixth, Christopher Bell seventh, Ryan Blaney eighth, Riley Herbst ninth, and Bubba Wallace tenth.
The pole round of qualifying took the top ten from Round 1 and sent them out from slowest to fastest. Wallace was the first driver out on track, lapping NASCAR’s biggest oval in 52.694s, but he didn’t hold the provisional pole for very long.
Bell was the next driver out and immediately jumped to P1 in a trend that continued. McDowell was the first driver to break into the 52.4s, putting Chevrolet on top late in the session.
Herbst, who was second in the first round, was not able to repeat it in the pole round as he was ninth out of ten drivers. Despite that, it’s still the best qualifying effort for that No. 35 this year.
Briscoe led all drivers in Round 1 and has won more poles than any other Cup driver this year, but even he couldn’t unseat McDowell. He got within 0.019s of McDowell, but had to settle for the outside of the front row.
Round 1
Briscoe topped the first round with a fast lap of 52.529s, besting Herbst in a Toyota 1-2. Four Toyotas ended up advancing, joined by four Fords and two Chevrolets.
Wallace was the final driver to move forward in the qualifying session, beating Alex Bowman and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet by just 0.019s.
Along with Briscoe, Blaney and Bell were the only other playoff drivers to advance into the second round of qualifying.
William Byron, who is attempting to rebound from a bizarre pit entry collision at Las Vegas, will start 13th. Joey Logano, who has three wins at Talladega and is trying to defend his 2024 Cup title, will start 16th. Denny Hamlin, who locked himself into the Championship 4 with an emotional 60th career win last weekend, qualified 17th.
The slowest playoff drivers both belonged to Hendrick Motorsports with Kyle Larson 19th and Chase Elliott 25th.
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