Chase Elliott claimed the pole for Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway with a 1.568-second/131.713 mph lap in the third of three rounds of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying Friday. It was Elliott’s first pole of 2019 and his first-career pole at Bristol.
“It’s awesome. I’ve really been wanting a pole outside of Daytona and Talladega for a long time now,” Elliott said. "So I feel like I was finally able to contribute from my end a little bit more and get a pole that my team certainly deserves. We’ve got a fast NAPA Chevy. I appreciate everybody’s efforts at Hendrick Motorsports and the engine department and the chassis shop and everybody back home. They’ve been working really hard to try to get better and this is a big deal. We have some work to do, I think, for Sunday, and we’ll go to work tomorrow and try to get it driving good for 500 laps. That’s a long time.”
The Bristol pole was a fifth Cup Series pole, overall, for Elliott, but his first at a track other than Daytona International Speedway or Talladega Superspeedway. Three of his previous poles came at Daytona.
After Hendrick Motorsports claimed the top-three positions on the starting grid for the previous weekend’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, William Byron qualified second, so he and Elliott gave HMS a sweep of the Bristol front row.
"It’s awesome to be one-two for Hendrick Motorsports two weeks in a row. I hate to be on the second end of it, but it’s still fun to start on the front row,” Byron said. "I feel like we’re making huge strides in the speed of our cars, and it just makes things easier at the track. I feel like Chad [Knaus, crew chief] and I are starting to gel a little more. Thanks to Axalta and everyone at Hendrick Motorsports for this race car, and Chevrolet, obviously. This is fun, so hopefully, we can keep it going on Sunday.”
The final round of qualifying was the first and only Cup Series on-track activity on Friday not led by Ryan Blaney. Blaney was tops in the day’s lone practice session and was fastest in the first two rounds of qualifying. His 14.528-second/132.076 mph lap in the second round set a new track qualifying record. His fast lap of record in the opening round clocked in at 14.671 seconds/130.789 mph.
But in the third round of qualifying, Blaney was third to share the second row with Erik Jones.
“I got greedy,” Blaney said of his third-round attempt. “I got greedy into three and missed it. I probably ran about a .45. The first lap was our best lap, and I just got greedy into three and missed it and, then, got loose out of it. We lost it by just a little bit for how bad I missed it, so just greedy. I ran one lap in every round but messed up so bad the first lap in the last round that I had to run more, and it just wasn’t as good.”
Jones’ Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Denny Hamlin, started fifth.
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