With a 25.48-second/141.287 mph lap in the third and final round of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at ISM [formerly Phoenix International] Raceway on Friday, Ryan Blaney claimed the pole for Sunday's Ticket Guardian 500. Blaney's pole-winning lap in the final round was the only official lap during the qualifying session to surpass the 141 mph mark.
“It’s a pretty decent amount different,” Blaney said. "You can feel it. You can feel the taller spoiler, bigger splitter; you can really feel that, especially turn one and two, since it’s really flat. I feel like you can get in there a little bit faster, roll a lot faster, get back to the throttle sooner. Three and four are pretty similar. Maybe your on-throttle point is a little bit faster, but one and two you really get the difference just because it’s so flat, and you’re rolling off-throttle off-brake there for so long. You can feel the speed difference. I don’t know how much faster we were – three or four-tenths faster than last year qualifying – and you can definitely feel it. It took a run or two to kind of get used to in practice how far you could push it, so, yeah, it’s interesting to overlay driver inputs from last year to this year just to see how much less brake you’re using, how much more throttle on time it is.”
The aerodynamic package on the race cars at ISM Raceway feature the larger rear spoilers and front splitters that also were on cars the last two weekends at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, but the aero ducts that were present in Las Vegas are absent in Phoenix and horsepower is back up to the familiar 750 hp range of old after a couple of races at 550 hp.
Blaney put his Ford on the pole after a couple of other Ford drivers scuffled between the first two rounds of qualifying. Daniel Suarez, unhappy with room he wasn't given on the race track by McDowell in the opening round, approached McDowell after round one completed. He was met with a shove by McDowell and responded by pulling McDowell to the ground. A crewman, then, pushed Suarez onto the hood of McDowell's car and McDowell grabbed Suarez's leg.
“What I told Daniel, everybody makes mistakes; that’s just part of it,” McDowell said. Not every qualifying session is gonna go how you want it. It’s not how we wanted it to go. It hurt us as well. It’s not the race. We’ve got 300-and-some-odd laps to figure it out on Sunday.”
Neither driver advanced beyond the first round of qualifying. McDowell qualified 27th, and Suasrez was 28th.
All three manufacturers put cars in the top-three of the race starting order, with Chevrolet driver Chase Elliott qualifying second to start on the front row next to Blaney. Toyota driver Denny Hamlin qualified third.
"I hate qualifying second,” Elliott said. "We’ve qualified second out here last fall and, then, this one. But I guess he isn’t a bad one to qualify second to. But I look forward to Sunday. I think our Hooters Camaro, at least, has a good place to start, and we can have a good pit selection. That’s important. We have a long race ahead, but I’d really like to get a pole outside of a speedway track. We’ll try again next week.”
The eventual pole sitter also was fastest in the second round of qualifying with a 25.641-second/140.400 mph lap. Defending Ticket Guardian 500 winner and nine-time ISM Raceway winner Kevin Harvick led the opening round with a 25.903-second/138.980 mph lap. He advanced to the final round of qualifying and wound up eighth.
