Team Penske will start from the pole position in both of the marquee races this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, as Joey Logano followed up David Malukas’ NTT IndyCar Series pole with a pole-winning run of his own in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Logano secured the 34th pole position of his 18-year NASCAR Cup Series career on the strength of a 26.561-second (135.537 mph) lap time in Saturday’s qualifying session for Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500.
Starting Lineup: Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix
While qualifying has become an ultra-tight affair in the NASCAR Cup Series since the adaptation of the Next Gen car in 2022, Logano took the pole by a comparatively large margin in the current era, as he topped the competition by 0.117 seconds.
Kyle Larson, the defending NASCAR Cup Series champion, will start alongside Logano from the front row in Sunday’s race, and Larson admits he surprised himself by securing the runner-up starting spot for Sunday’s race.
Austin Cindric, who sat atop the speed charts for a large portion of the session, would hang on for a third-place starting spot, and he’ll be joined by Spire Motorsports driver Daniel Suarez in the second row.
Ryan Blaney, who won the last NASCAR Cup Series event at Phoenix Raceway, will start from the fifth position, and he was followed by Ross Chastain, Carson Hocevar, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, and Josh Berry, who rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for the race.
Reddick comes into this race seeking his fourth consecutive win to start the 2026 season. Last week, at Circuit of the Americas, Reddick became the first driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win the opening three races of a season.
In NASCAR Cup Series practice earlier in the afternoon, Reddick was one of many drivers who found trouble. Late in the session, Reddick scraped the wall and went for a spin, but did relatively no real damage to his No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota.
Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, and Brad Keselowski were among the drivers in the session who suffered flat tires. Buescher and Herbst would have excursions, but would be able to salvage their primary cars for Sunday’s race. Keselowski wasn’t as fortunate, as he pounded the outside wall, and his RFK Racing team would pull out the backup No. 6 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, which led to Keselowski not being able to turn a lap in qualifying.
Keselowski will start from the 37th position in Sunday’s race.
