Qualifying for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the perfect example of an age-old expression: “the cream always rises to the top”.
Tyler Reddick, one of the strongest and most consistent drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series at the moment, earned the pole position for the event, laying down a lap of 49.469 seconds (181.932mph) to win the pole for the Brickyard 400.
It’s the eighth NASCAR Cup Series pole position for Reddick, four of which have come with his current team, 23XI Racing. The triumph in Saturday’s qualifying session also backs up the raw pace shown by topping Friday’s 50-minute practice session.
The Corning, California-native was able to lay down the quickest time in the second and final round of qualifying to score the pole, maintaining a gap of 0.035 seconds over Chase Elliott.
Denny Hamlin will start from the outside of the front row, after being the fastest driver in the final round of qualifying to advance from Group A, awarding him a second-place starting spot.
Despite having the second-fastest time in the final round, Chase Elliott will qualify in third place, with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson rounding out the top five.
Each of the top-five starters (Reddick, Hamlin, Elliott, Byron, and Larson) also make up the five main competitors in the fight for the regular-season championship, which features the top-four drivers separated by 20 points.
Ty Gibbs will start from sixth, as he looks to defend his post-season position following a poor finish at Pocono Raceway last weekend. Ryan Blaney, who won at Pocono, will start from seventh, while Michael McDowell, Ricky Stenhouse. Jr. and John Hunter Nemechek complete the top-10.
STARTING LINEUP: 2024 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis
Notables starting from outside the top-10 include Joey Logano (12th), Alex Bowman (13th), Martin Truex, Jr. (14th), Bubba Wallace (17th), Christopher Bell (18th), Chris Buescher (23rd), Brad Keselowski (26th), Ross Chastain (28th), and Kyle Busch (34th).
Austin Cindric, winner earlier this season at World Wide Technology Raceway, suffered some major issues in qualifying, making contact with the wall twice, relegating him to a 38th-place starting spot.
