Fresh off his third NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season, Kyle Larson will start on pole for Sunday’s inaugural race at Iowa Speedway.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver topped the charts at a fastest speed of 136.458 mph, edging Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney by 0.025 seconds.
“Obviously happy to get the pole,” Larson began. “It helped to go out last, probably. I’m sure the track was continuing to get a little bit better. We got to watch SMT of everybody’s runs, so that helps. But it also makes you a little bit more nervous when you see everybody out there struggling.
“Thankfully, my lap was mostly comfortable; a little bit loose like everybody was. But we were able to piece together two pretty consistent laps and be fast enough on that second lap to get it done.”
While Blaney preferred pole position, he felt it was a major positive after posting the 22nd fastest speed during Friday’s practice session.
“It would have been nice, obviously, but that’s a big improvement from yesterday,” Blaney said. “We did a lot of work overnight and this morning to figure out how to be better than where we were yesterday at the end of practice. We’re really proud of that effort. Larson does that stuff, but it was a really good run. I wish I would have done one thing a little different my second lap.
“I got a really good first lap, but the second lap I tried to switch it up to gain time and I kind of missed the three and four mark that I was trying to hit and maybe that was a little bit of it, but, overall, a good day. We have a good starting spot for tomorrow and we’ll see what we can do.”
It was Larson’s fourth pole of the season and the 20th of his career.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s Josh Berry starts third, followed by HMS’ William Byron and RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski completing the top five. SHR’s Chase Briscoe starts sixth with Kyle Busch (seventh), Tyler Reddick (eighth), Chase Elliott (ninth) and Christopher Bell making up the top 10.
Bell will start at the rear of the field due to switching to a backup car. The driver of the No. 20 crashed in practice on Friday. Austin Cindric will also swap to a backup car after he crashed in the session as well. Cindric qualified 21st.
With rain threatening, qualifying was one round, with the field broken up into two groups.
The fastest times were combined from each group to determine the lineup for Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol.