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Hamlin leads Toyota sweep of Charlotte qualifying
Toyota drivers swept the top four spots in Coca-Cola 600 qualifying Saturday night, with Denny Hamlin earning the pole position.
Hamlin’s pole speed was 183.680 mph (29.399s). It is the second time Hamlin will lead the field to the green flag in NASCAR’s longest race and the 34th pole of his NASCAR Cup Series career.
“It’s been a great day,” Hamlin said. “The end result is probably the perfect scenario for me to have an ideal day. Our car’s been good; it was good off the truck and we continued to tune on it quite a bit and then thought once this thing got into the night that you’d want to run the low line through (Turns) 3 and 4 and so I got as many reps as I could doing that and it looked like that was the difference-maker in the lap itself. I’m happy about it.”
Kurt Busch will join his boss on the front row. Busch clocked in at 183.661 mph.
Christopher Bell qualified third at 183.655 mph and Kyle Busch qualified fourth at 183.505 mph.
William Byron starts fifth (182.927 mph), Austin Cindric starts sixth (182.303 mph), and Bubba Wallace starts seventh (182.291 mph). Tyler Reddick starts eighth (182.199 mph) and Alex Bowman starts ninth (182.168 mph). Completing the top 10 qualifiers is Michael McDowell (181.087 mph).
Ryan Blaney starts 11th; Chase Elliott starts 13th; Martin Truex Jr. starts 14th, and Kevin Harvick starts 18th. Further back is Ross Chastain starting 22nd and Joey Logano 23rd.
Brad Keselowski spun off Turn 4 during his qualifying lap and starts 36th. Fortunately, Keselowski did not hit anything during the spin.
Kyle Larson did not make a qualifying run after hitting the wall in practice. Larson, the defending race winner, starts 36th.
Corey LaJoie also did not make a qualifying run after he crashed in practice. Spire Motorsports is putting together a backup car for LaJoie. He stars last, 37th.
UP NEXT: The Coca-Cola 600 at 6 p.m. ET Sunday.
Kelly Crandall
Kelly has been on the NASCAR beat full-time since 2013, and joined RACER as chief NASCAR writer in 2017. Her work has also appeared in NASCAR.com, the NASCAR Illustrated magazine, and NBC Sports. A corporate communications graduate from Central Penn College, Crandall is a two-time George Cunningham Writer of the Year recipient from the National Motorsports Press Association.
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