Christopher Bell has always been strong at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, scoring top-two finishes in seven of his eight NASCAR National Series starts at the 1.058-mile facility based in Loudon, New Hampshire.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s success at the facility has translated into single-car qualifying for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Crayon 301, scoring his fifth career pole in Saturday’s multi-round, single-car session.
Bell, who scored a victory earlier in the year at Bristol Dirt, posted a time of 30.524 seconds (124.781mph) around New Hampshire Motor Speedway to score the pole position, beating out teammate Martin Truex, Jr. by seven-thousandths of a second.
Aric Almirola, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series winner at New Hampshire, will start Sunday’s 301-lap contest from third place, with Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney completing the top-five starters for the event.
Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Bubba Wallace, Brad Keselowski, and Kyle Busch will be credited with starting spots inside the top-10 to begin the 20th event of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season.
However, Kyle Busch, who had issues scraping the outside wall in practice, crashed in the second round of qualifying, when his No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro lost traction entering the first corner and crashed into the outside wall. Busch will start from the rear on Sunday as a result of unloading a backup car.
Notable drivers that failed to advance to the final round of qualifying, include Kevin Harvick (13th), Kyle Larson (15th), Michael McDowell (17th), Chase Elliott (18th), Denny Hamlin (20th), Alex Bowman (25th), Chase Briscoe (27th), Ross Chastain (31st) and Ty Gibbs (36th).
Gibbs, similar to Kyle Busch, had an incident in qualifying, but was able to avoid crashing his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry TRD, but would post the slowest lap in the session, relegating him to a last-place start.
Qualifying Results – 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Crayon 301 at New Hampshire:
2023 NASCAR Cup Series Crayon 301 at New Hampshire Qualifying Results
