Denny Hamlin’s bid for another Martinsville grandfather clock begins from pole position on Sunday in the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out 400.
A six-time winner in the Cup Series at his home track Hamlin set fast time during Saturday’s qualifying session with a lap of 19.275 seconds around the 0.526-mile facility. The Chesterfield, Virginia native was confident following practice, and put together the pieces for a fast lap when it mattered on Saturday afternoon.
“Hats off to the whle Bob’s Discount Furniture team,” said Hamlin. “The car was good today. Did a lot of really good things in practice, and I was hoping to get somewhere in that top eight for qualifying. Just really concentrated on hitting my marks, doing what I needed to do. I thought the track had a .20 in it. If I’d do it all over again, I thought I could. You know, it was good enough.”
Hamlin dominated one year ago in the Cook Out 400, leading 274 of the race’s 400 laps for a convincing victory. This year, more horsepower awaits NASCAR Cup Series competitors at the short tracks, with Martinsville the shortest on the regular season calendar.
That change creates some new challenges for Sunday’s race. Hamlin is happy to have the pace shown during qualifying, but hopes his car can handle well and negotiate lapped traffic for 400 laps.
“It will change some things,” Hamlin explained. “I certainly felt like, in practice, that you had to be very sensitive to your inputs. There’s going to be good handling cars and bad. When you get to the back of the bad-handling cars, are you good enough and versatile enough to get around them? That’s gonna be all the difference.”
William Byron, last fall’s winner at Martinsville in the Xfinity 500, joins Hamlin on the front row, clocking in at 19.331 seconds, just three-thousandths of a second ahead of Josh Berry.
“We just had to be patient today with this place,” said Byron. “Our balance wasn’t perfect in practice, but I feel like it’s still in a good place for tomorrow. Just trying to kind of be patient with the conditions and cleaning all the rubber off from the other series and getting our rubber on.
“Qualifying was just a little bit different than last fall. Felt like, as soon as I left pit road, I didn’t feel like I had a ton of grip. I’m happy with the lap. I just had to be kind of patient with it and make sure I wrap the curve well.”
The second-place qualifying effort marks Byron’s first start inside the top five in the 2026 season. He hopes that promising start to the weekend will translate on Sunday.
“I feel like our race car is gonna be really good tomorrow. We’ve learned a lot this year. It seems like Saturdays have been a struggle for us this year, just trying to have solid Saturdays and be looking forward to Sunday and keep a similar balance. Hopefully we don’t over-adjust tonight and just talk it through, and we should have a good day tomorrow.”
Ty Gibbs qualified fourth, with Shane van Gisbergen rounding out the top five in his best oval qualifying effort to date in the NASCAR Cup Series.
The Cook Out 400 takes the green flag at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 29. Coverage of the event is available on FS1, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
