Denny Hamlin saved the best for last in qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series’s inaugural street race in Chicago on Saturday when he unloaded a late flyer to put the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on pole.
Shane van Gisbergen had been in the catbird seat as the session headed into the final two minutes with a 1m28.588s in the No. 91 Trackhouse entry, which at the time was around 0.3s clear of the rest of the field. But Hamlin found an answer with a 1m28.483s to soar clear of the New Zealander, and Tyler Reddick also improved on his final lap to post a 1m28.479s in 23XI’s No. 45 Toyota and jump to P2.
That dropped three-time and reigning Australian Supercar champion van Gisbergen to third for his NASCAR Cup Series debut, with Christopher Bell reinforcing a solid day for JGR by putting the No. 20 fourth on the grid.
Daniel Suarez completed the top five ahead of Michael McDowell — fourth to sixth being covered by just over 0.1s — while Kyle Larson in seventh narrowly edged out Jenson Button, although the 2009 F1 world champion’s starting position of eighth is a huge leap forward from his 24th on debut at COTA earlier this year.
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Joey Logano and A.J. Allmendinger rounded out the top 10; the latter waited until the final seconds of the first qualifying round to bump Alex Bowman out of the fight for pole.
Van Gisbergen came perilously close to a similar fate when the decision to wait in pitlane until the final five minutes of the 15-minute opening round almost backfired. He was a couple of corners away from completing a first flying lap that would have comfortablely put him through to round two when Chase Elliott crashed at Turn 8. It was a remarkably similar incident to the one that derailed Ricky Stenhouse Jr in practice — clipping the inside wall and then ramming into the outside barrier — but the immediate full-course caution nullified van Gisbergen’s lap, and left him one shot to get it done when the session returned to green.
Meanwhile, Elliott had barely left the infield medical center when Kevin Harvick arrived. All of the Stewart Haas cars had struggled for speed on Satrurday, but now they also have a repair job to do after the No. 4 tagged the left wall and was spat into the outside barrier at Turn 1.
Pain. pic.twitter.com/yl50opxIcd
— Stewart-Haas Racing (@StewartHaasRcng) July 1, 2023
The hit was hard enough to shift two 10,000lb pieces of fencing — prompting a short delay while they were returned to their correct position — but Harvick retained a sense of humor about it. Asked for his thoughts about having to start at the back as a consequence of the crash, he replied, “Well, we were going to be back there anyway…”