Joey Logano will be on the pole for the green flag to start the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. He was awarded the top starting position for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race by virtue of his #22 Team Penske Ford being atop the owner points standings after the cancellation of qualifying on Friday. Qualifying was cancelled after lightning prevented NASCAR officials from conducting inspections in a timely fashion before qualifying was scheduled to get underway at 5:05 p.m. ET.
Logano will be joined on the front row by Toyota driver Kyle Busch, who is tied with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. for most wins in the first 17 races of the season with four.
“You’ve got to be good [to win at Daytona], but there’s still a lot of luck involved,” Busch said. “You’ve got to be out front. When your cars are fast, you need to do a good job. You know how to lead it, get yourself through traffic, you’ll be out front a lot of the time.
Toyota was tops in two practice sessions Thursday, with Truex, Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, defending Coke Zero Sugar 400 winner Erik Jones and Matt DiBenedetto occupying the top-four positions on the list of fastest laps in final practice.
“Coming back as the defending winner always feels good,” Jones said. “For me, it gives you that extra little bump to keep being the defending winner and to come back and do it again.”
DiBenedetto, Hamlin and Jones also had the first through third fastest 10-lap averages in the second practice session.
“At Daytona, it’s not setup driven. It is strategic that you really have to make yourself a great race car driver here. It’s just putting yourself in the right position here at the right time and avoiding the wrecks. It’s hard enough to win one, let alone two because of all of the variables. It’s so hard to do. The odds are stacked so far against you. That’s why you don’t see it happen very often,” Hamlin said of the difficulty of winning two-straight at the track.
Eventual front-row starter, Bush, posted the fastest lap and had the best 10-lap average in opening practice.
With the starting grid for Saturday’s race set, though, Ford dominates the front two rows with three of the first four starting positions. Logano’s Penske teammate Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick are in the third and fourth-place starting spots to start in row two.
Chase Elliott will be the Chevrolet driver closest to the front at the green flag on Saturday, starting seventh.
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