After a rough a tumble set of practice and qualifying sessions on Saturday at the Chicago Street Course, there will be at least 10 cars dropping to the rear of the field prior to the green flag in Sunday’s Grant Park 165.
Starting Lineup: NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 165 at Chicago
Due to various on-track encounters with barriers, several teams sustained damage to toe links and suspensions on their cars, necessitating unapproved adjustments following Saturday’s qualifying session to repair them.
Nine of the 10 drivers going to the rear will be doing so do to unapproved adjustments, they include No. 4 Noah Gragson (qualified 24th), No. 5 Kyle Larson (14th), No. 9 Chase Elliott (39th), No. 10 Ty Dillon (36th), No. 23 Bubba Wallace (37th), No. 24 William Byron (38th), No. 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (32nd), No. 48 Alex Bowman (11th), and No. 78 Katherine Legge (33rd).
Additionally, Denny Hamlin, who was already set to start shotgun on the field, will drop to the rear following an engine change in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota following a blown engine on the opening lap of practice on Saturday at the Chicago Street Course.
These setbacks can be overcome, but in the two previous editions of the NASCAR Cup Series Street Race at the Chicago Street Course, the worst a winner has started was eighth, which was achieved by Alex Bowman a season ago.
Included in the drivers dropping to the rear of the field are the entire top-four of the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season championship battle (Byron, Elliott, Larson, and Hamlin) as well as five drivers, who have yet to win this season and need good days to continue working their way toward a potential Playoff berth.
Legge is a part-time driver, but is also a unique storyline as she bumped Corey Heim from the starting lineup to make her third NASCAR Cup Series start of the season.
The Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Course will be televised on Sunday, July 6 on TNT, and television coverage of the event will kick off at 2:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the race.
Shane van Gisbergen secured the pole position on Saturday, and also won the NASCAR Xfinity Series event over Connor Zilisch. SVG will attempt to collect his second NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season on Sunday.
