Hamlin claims pole in quest for back-to-back Martinsville wins

Denny Hamlin will begin his quest for a seventh grandfather clock at Martinsville Speedway from the pole position Sunday afternoon.

Hamlin, who won the spring race at Martinsville last year, went to the top of the board late in qualifying with a lap of 98.241 mph (19.275s). It is his first pole of the season. It is his fifth pole at his home racetrack.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has now won a pole in 19 different seasons. That ties Hamlin for third all-time with Mark Martin for the most seasons.

“The car was good today,” Hamlin said. “It did a lot of really good things in practice and I was hoping to get somewhere in that top eight for qualifying. But I really concentrated on hitting my marks, doing what I needed to do. … They did a great job with the adjustments, and certainly that’s going to be a great place to start.”

William Byron qualified second. Byron’s fastest lap was 97.957 mph.

Josh Berry qualified third (97.941 mph) and Ty Gibbs qualified fourth (97.921 mph), and Shane van Gisbergen rounded out the top five (97.916 mph). The qualifying effort marks the first time van Gisbergen will start inside the top five on an oval.

Austin Cindric qualified sixth (97.855 mph), Carson Hocevar qualified seventh (97.795 mph) and Tyler Reddick was eighth (97.729 mph). Joey Logano qualified ninth (97.664 mph), and Chase Elliott completed the top 10 qualifiers (97.649 mph).

Christopher Bell qualified just outside the top 10 in 11th, while Ryan Blaney qualified 12th, and Kyle Larson qualified 13th. Bubba Wallace was 15th after being the fastest in practice.

RFK Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece qualified 16th and 17th respectively. The team’s third driver, and co-owner, Brad Keselowski, was 23rd for his 600th start in the Cup Series.

Connor Zilisch qualified 25th for his first Cup Series race at Martinsville.

There will be 37 teams that contest Sunday’s race.

UP NEXT: The Cook Out 400 at 3:30pm ET Sunday.

RESULTS