Chase Briscoe won the pole for the 67th annual Daytona 500 on Wednesday, with Austin Cindric joining him on the front row. Here are the major takeaways from Wednesday’s qualifying session.
Toyota finally in the spotlight
Before Briscoe’s blazing lap on Wednesday, Toyota had never sat on the pole for the Daytona 500. After struggling mightily in last year’s Daytona 500 qualifying session, Toyota stepped up on Wednesday, sending Briscoe and fellow Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin to the final round of qualifying. After struggling to find speed in superspeedway qualifying sessions a year ago, Toyota came out with the biggest bang possible in Daytona.
Former champions lock themselves in
Seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. weren’t guaranteed Daytona 500 starting spots going into Wednesday’s qualifying session, but both drivers laid down fast enough laps to not have to stress about Thursday’s duels. TRICON Garage gave Truex Jr. the fastest of all open cars, which was enough for Truex to place 22nd on the speed charts. Johnson’s 29th-place effort was better than the rest of the open cars, which locked him into the field a year after he barely edged J.J Yeley for a spot in the ‘Great American Race’. Johnson nor Truex Jr. will have to worry about missing the Daytona 500 due to a flurry of chaos in Thursday’s duel races.
Hendrick’s dominance dispelled
Hendrick Motorsports has made a habit of putting cars on the front row for the Daytona 500 over the past decade, but the front row for Sunday’s race will be devoid of Hendrick cars for the second year in a row. Only one Hendrick car, the No. 5 of Kyle Larson, made the final round of qualifying. Larson’s 10th-place effort was nothing special, while Alex Bowman, (12th) Chase Elliott (15th) and William Byron (21st) were unable to crack the top-10. For an organization that is always at least in contention for the front row, seeing HMS be completely absent from the pole conversation was a massive surprise. Starting position doesn’t matter all that much at superspeedways such as Daytona, but nevertheless, it was a little shocking to not see an HMS Chevy near the top of the pylon on Wednesday.
Daytona 500 qualifying results:
- Chase Briscoe
- Austin Cindric
- Ryan Preece
- Joey Logano
- Josh Berry
- Denny Hamlin
- Austin Dillon
- Christopher Bell
- Ty Dillon
- Kyle Larson
- Zane Smith
- Alex Bowman
- Kyle Busch
- Todd Gilliland
- Chase Elliott
- Brad Keselowski
- Michael McDowell
- Chris Buescher
- AJ Allmendinger
- Ryan Blaney
- William Byron
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Noah Gragson
- Ty Gibbs
- Daniel Suarez
- Tyler Reddick
- Riley Herbst
- Bubba Wallace
- Jimmie Johnson
- Shane van Gisbergen
- Justin Haley
- Cole Custer
- Justin Allgaier
- Carson Hocevar
- Corey LaJoie
- Erik Jones
- Ross Chastain
- John Hunter Nemechek
- Helio Castroneves
- Anthony Alfredo
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Chandler Smith
- BJ McLeod
- JJ Yeley
- Cody Ware
The Daytona Duels will be held on Thursday night. Duel 1 will go green shortly after 7 p.m. ET, with Duel 2 going green approximately 24 minutes after the conclusion of Duel 1. The winners of Duel 1 and Duel 2 will start third and fourth in Sunday’s Daytona 500, respectively.
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