Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than it is to be good. Denny Hamlin was the perfect combination of the two on Saturday afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway as he was able to secure his fourth NASCAR Cup Series pole position of the season ahead of Sunday’s eero 400.
Starting Lineup: 2026 eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway
However, just after the qualifying session ended, clouds invaded the 1.5-mile speedway in Joliet, IL, and put the entire track in cloud cover. Hamlin, who scored his 52nd career NASCAR Cup Series pole position, feels that if the clouds had rolled in a couple of minutes earlier, he would not be the polesitter for Sunday’s race.
“I’ve got to be honest with you. I got extremely lucky,” Hamlin admitted. “Anyone who goes out right now beats me. I’m very confident in that. We got lucky that these last 12 guys just got stuck in the sun. The track is a very temperature-sensitive track that gets a little bit of sun on it, and it just slows way up. I think we got very fortunate with the timing of that.”
Still, even with the good luck, Hamlin executed just well enough during his qualifying lap to defeat Kyle Larson by the thinnest margin possible, 0.001 seconds, to score the pole position. Hamlin was ecstatic to score the pole, as he was hoping to start inside the top-12, based on his qualifying order draw.
“We hit our lap pretty decent, considering where we went out. Really happy with the result for the whole Progressive team, and we’ll definitely start from there. My goal was P12 for today,” Hamlin smiled.
Hamlin, who is now up to four pole positions this season, will seek his fifth victory of the 2026 campaign on Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway.
Larson was surprised that he was so close to the pole position, as he felt he had made some crucial errors during his qualifying run.
“I actually thought it was going to be worse than that,” Larson explained. “I didn’t get the best run to the green [flag], I was bouncing a little too much. And then, Turn 1, my car turned in better than I anticipated, so my angle was just a little bit off. And then, that made me a little tight off of [Turn] 2. And then into [Turn] 3, again the initial turn in turned well, but then I just started picking up a tight [condition] right before the bumps, and I was nervous.”
Seeing how close he ultimately was to the pole position was slightly sickening for Larson, who hasn’t scored a win or a pole since last season.
“To come up a thousandth (of a second) short, I haven’t had a pole — I haven’t had a win in a while, but I also haven’t had a pole in a while. It would have been nice to check one of those off,” Larson said.
Row 2 of Sunday’s starting grid will be occupied by RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski, who surprised with excellent speed in Saturday’s qualifying session.
Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, and William Byron rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for the eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
Michael McDowell will start shotgun on the field after his No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet was unable to pass pre-race inspection prior to the start of the qualifying session. At the time of publishing, McDowell’s car still hasn’t passed inspection. Depending on how many more attempts it takes, there could be additional penalties handed out to McDowell and the No. 71 team prior to Sunday’s green flag in the eero 400.
