NASCAR’s return to a single-car, single-round qualifying format at Dover International Speedway on Friday was record-breaking. Chase Elliott’s pole-winning 21.692-second/165.960 mph lap surpassed the Dover qualifying record set by Brad Keselowski in 2014. The pole was Elliott’s sixth-career pole, his second of the season and his first at the track at which he won last October. It also was Chevrolet’s sixth pole in the first 11 races of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season.
"The corner speeds are just so high,” Elliott said. "There’s just a lot more throttle through the corner than what I feel like we’ve been carrying. But it was a lot of fun. Our NAPA Brakes Chevy was good right there. It’s always nice. This place can either be a lot of fun in qualifying, or it can be a handful. Today was one of those fun ones."
Five of the 37 entrants for Sunday’s Gander RV 400 broke Keselowski’s old qualifying record at the track. The first driver to surpass Keselowski’s old mark was Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron, the fourth driver to make an attempt in Friday’s qualifying session. At the end of the session, he was still on the front row to give HMS a front-row sweep.
"Team Hendrick one-two was awesome. Chevrolet power and everybody that contributes to our car has been working hard,” Elliott said. “ Hopefully, we can back it up on Sunday.”
Chevrolet took the top-three spots on the Dover starting grid and four positions inside the top-five. Kyle Larson qualified third and a third Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, was fifth.
“It’s tough only getting one shot at it, well, two shots and two laps,” Larson said. “But I felt like I ran harder and smoother and better my second lap, but I went a little slower. I was surprised by that. I wish I could be on the pole right now, but I’m pretty happy.”
Joey Logano was the lone non-Chevrolet driver in the top-five, qualifying his Ford in the fourth position. The remaining Hendrick Motorsports driver, seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, qualified 12th.
After Byron claimed the provisional pole with his early run, Larson became the second driver to surpass the old track record to claim the other provisional front-row spot after going out 20th in the qualifying order. Byron and Larson held those positions until Elliott went out 30th of the 37 contenders and knocked Byron and Larson each down a notch, nudging Byron to the other front-row spot and Larson back to the second row.
Denny Hamlin was the highest-qualifying Toyota driver in eighth.
“I thought it went well for us, considering the draw that we had,” Hamlin said. “I was pretty happy; qualifying there in the top-10 at least gets us a good draw for next week’s qualifying. We’ll battle from there. It’s just a starting spot, and you really don’t know what you’ve got in race trim until tomorrow morning. We’ll go to work on that and see where we end up.”
