William Byron was able to channel his inner Jeff Gordon at Darlington Raceway on Saturday, capturing the pole position for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at the iconic racetrack.
Posting a lap time of 28.774 seconds (170.904mph), Byron surged to the top of the speed charts in Saturday’s single-vehicle session from Darlington, South Carolina, putting his No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet on pole for the Goodyear 400.
It’s the fastest pole speed ever recorded at Darlington Raceway in the history of the seventh-generation racecar, which made its debut in 2022.
The triumph in qualifying means that Byron, sporting a tribute scheme to Jeff Gordon’s (planned) final start in the NASCAR Cup Series at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2015, will get prime pit stall selection for Sunday’s 400-miler.
It’s the 15th NASCAR Cup Series pole position for Byron, and his second of the 2025 campaign – the first of which came at Phoenix Raceway.
STARTING LINEUP: Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway
“It was just a good week of prep with our guys, just really proud of their effort, got a great looking throwback scheme – back to Jeff Gordon’s 2015 car,” said Byron. “The lap was, I felt like [Turns 1 and 2] was really good, I feel like I gave up a little bit in [Turn 4], so was just good enough to get through there and through the middle of [Turns 3 and 4], so just proud of that.”
“To get a pole here is great, I don’t think we’ve ever had the pole at Darlington,” Byron added. “We usually run well here, so just have to put it together tomorrow.”
Ryan Preece, who enters Darlington on the longest top-10 streak of his NASCAR Cup Series career, secured a second-place starting spot, and will be alongside William Byron as the No. 24 leads the field to green on Sunday.
It’s not only the second front row qualifying effort for Preece in his 194-race career at NASCAR’s top level, but it’s also his first top-10 qualifying result with RFK Racing, in which he had a previous best start of 11th at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race-winner, Denny Hamlin, will roll from third place on Sunday at Darlington Raceway, as he looks to collect back-to-back wins for the first time since 2012.
Chase Briscoe, who won the Southern 500 at Darlington last Fall with Stewart-Haas Racing, will roll from fourth, with another Toyota-backed driver, Bubba Wallace, completing the top-five starters.
Austin Cindric posted a strong lap early in the session to qualify sixth, with Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Michael McDowell rounding out the first five rows for Sunday’s 400-mile contest at the track dubbed ‘Too Tough To Tame’.
Other notables include Carson Hocevar in 13th, after posting the fastest time in NASCAR Cup Series practice earlier in the afternoon, Chase Elliott in 15th, Christopher Bell in 17th, Joey Logano in 18th, Kyle Larson in 19th, defending Darlington Spring winner Brad Keselowski in 20th, and Alex Bowman in a disappointing 33rd.
Austin Hill and JJ Yeley, the only two open entries in the field for this weekend’s event at Darlington, occupied the bottom two spots in qualifying and will roll from the 19th and final row in Sunday’s event.
The Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway is scheduled to take place on Sunday, April 6, at 3:00 PM ET on FOX Sports 1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
