Christopher Bell won the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway with a qualifying lap of 183.107mph (29.491s).
It is Bell’s first pole of the season and third at Kansas Speedway, as well as the 11th of his career.
“Qualifying on the intermediates has been really, really good for this whole team ever since the introduction of the Next Gen car,” Bell said. “I can tell you right now, I live for those moments where it’s just on the verge of holding your foot down. I’m pretty sure we talked before qualifying about how I was perplexed about the amount of off-throttle time they had, and there was more of what I was expecting.”
Ross Chastain qualified second with a lap of 182.704mph.
Noah Gragson qualified third at 182.451mph. It is the second time in two weeks Gragson has qualified inside the top five, and he improves upon his career-best qualifying effort of fifth place last weekend at Dover.
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Kyle Larson qualified fourth at 182.383mph and Kyle Busch qualified fifth at 182.070mph
Ty Gibbs qualified sixth at 181.745mph, Austin Cindric, seventh at 180.318mph, Michael McDowell, eighth at 180.959mph and Chase Elliott, ninth at 180.012mph. Chase Briscoe, who scrubbed the wall on his lap, completed the top 10 qualifiers at 175.919mph.
The defending race winner at Kansas Speedway, Denny Hamlin, qualified 14th. Tyler Reddick, who won the fall race at Kansas Speedway, qualified 15th.
Jimmie Johnson qualified 19th after picking up his pace from practice. It’s the first time in seven starts driving for Legacy Motor Club that Johnson will start inside the top 20.
William Byron hit and rode the wall in Turns 1 and 2 during his qualifying lap. It was significant contact for Byron, who immediately took his car to the garage. He qualified 36th of 38 drivers.
The green flag at Kansas Speedway is set to fly after 3 p.m. ET Sunday.