Another road course, another pole for van Gisbergen at Watkins Glen

Shane van Gisbergen will start Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen in the same position he ended last year’s. The defending race winner will lead the field to the green flag in his Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet thanks to a lap of 123.937 mph (1m11.165s). It is his first pole of the season and the fifth of his Cup Series career.

“The guys did a good job tuning what I needed for the one lap, and the Super File Chevy was really good,” van Gisbergen said. “But all Trackhouse cars in the top five as well. So, we’ve got some good cars here this weekend, and hopefully we can capitalize on that tomorrow.”

Watkins Glen was one of the five wins van Gisbergen had last season. Sunday will be the second road course race of the season, and van Gisbergen is looking to break through after coming up short at Circuit of The Americas to Tyler Reddick.

Michael McDowell will share the front row with van Gisbergen. McDowell, another road racing ace, qualified second with a lap of 123.488 mph.

“I feel like SVG kicked my butt through that bus stop,” McDowell said. “But really proud of everybody at Spire Motorsports – it’s been a rough few weeks. The Go Bowling Chevrolet was fast. The tire fall-off was incredible in practice, so we got a decent lap in there. But man, when you watch the SMT and how fast SVG gets through that bus stop, you’re like, 'Man, I should have done a better job!' But proud of everybody; we’ll take it and try to score some stage points and put ourselves in position to win. Like I said, it’s been a rough few weeks, so we've got to get the momentum back on our side.”

Austin Cindric qualified third after being fastest in practice. Cindric’s lap was 123.452 mph. Ross Chastain qualified fourth and Connor Zilisch was fifth, meaning all three Trackhouse Racing drivers will start inside the top five. Chastain’s lap was 123.445 mph and Zilisch’s lap was 123.386 mph.

Joey Logano qualified sixth at 123.319 mph, Ryan Blaney was seventh at 123.317 mph and Christopher Bell qualified eighth at 123.215 mph. Chase Briscoe was ninth at 123.214 mph and Ty Gibbs completed the top 10 at 123.159 mph.

Carson Hocevar qualified 11th, AJ Allmendinger qualified 12th, Chris Buescher, who won at Watkins Glen in 2024, was 14th and Reddick 15th. Daniel Suarez qualified 16th, Bubba Wallace qualified 18th and Denny Hamlin placed 20th.

Outside of the top 20 was Kyle Busch in 21st, Kyle Larson in 23rd, Brad Keselowski in 26th and Chase Elliott in 27th. Alex Bowman qualified 28th.

Katherine Legge qualified 38th. Legge used the session to get more practice in ahead of the race, running 14 laps.

UP NEXT: Go Bowling at The Glen at 3 p.m. ET Sunday.

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