William Byron nabs Busch Pole for Indianapolis Road Course
William Byron scored the Busch Pole Award for Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course (1 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Byron laid down a lap of 100.044 mph in his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the second round of qualifying to score his second pole of the season and the seventh of his career. He won the pole in July at Road America as well.
“Hopefully we have the speed in the race on my end to back it up; but definitely been doing a good job in qualifying,” Byron said after he locked down the pole position. “I‘m glad we got qualifying back because I feel like that‘s one of our strengths on the No. 24. So, I‘m looking forward to the race. And, like I said, hopefully we can keep it up there.”
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Byron is one of three Hendrick cars that will start in the top five of Sunday’s race. Road-course aces Chase Elliott will start third (99.518 mph) and Kyle Larson will start fourth (99.433 mph). Elliott and Larson have combined to win four of the five road-course races so far this season with Elliott scoring wins at Circuit of The Americas and Road America while Larson has grabbed victories at Sonoma and Watkins Glen. Elliott has seven road-course wins in his Cup career.
Rookie Chase Briscoe will start on the front row next to Byron in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford as he qualified second (99.561 mph). Briscoe won the Xfinity race last year on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile layout and has all three of his top 10s this season on road courses.
Daniel Suarez (No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Team Chevrolet, 99.291 mph) will line up fifth with Martin Truex Jr. (No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, 99.211 mph) sixth. Joey Logano, AJ Allmendinger, Ross Chastain, Cole Custer, Tyler Reddick and Michael McDowell will line up seventh through 12th, respectively.
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Notable drivers to start outside the top 12 include: Saturday’s Xfinity Series winner Austin Cindric (starting 13th), Denny Hamlin (starting 14th), Ryan Blaney (starting 16th), Christopher Bell (starting 17th), Kurt Busch (starting 20th), Kyle Busch (starting 21st), Alex Bowman (starting 24th), Kevin Harvick (starting 25th) and Brad Keselowski (starting 31st).
