Daniel Suarez's 184.590 mph lap in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Kentucky Speedway on Friday was the fastest among the 36 drivers making qualifying attempt, giving him the pole for Saturday night's Quaker State 400. Qualifying times Friday became official after the inspection process was completed Saturday.
“I feel pretty good about it,” Suarez said. "The whole day has been pretty smooth today. The 41 Haas Automation Ford Mustang has been pretty quick. We haven’t done a lot to it. It is big when you unload the car from the hauler and the car is fast out of the box. I feel very good about it. My crew chief and my engineer have done an amazing job. My entire team building this race car. We showed speed today, so hopefully, we can keep up that track position. Track position will be huge tomorrow. Hopefully, we can keep it all night long and make a good clean race. I feel like we have everything it takes to make it happen, so why not? We have had a lot of first-time winners lately; why not have a third one here?”
The pole is Suarez's first of the season but the second of his career.
Suarez was the last driver to make a qualifying attempt and knocked his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Aric Almirola from the provisional pole, giving SHR a front-row sweep.
“It is a great day for us,” Almirola said. "Everybody has been doing a good job of trying to figure out how to bring more speed and more driveability in our cars. I feel like this weekend, so far, we are off to a good start, and the cars are fast and driving good. We have part one done; we have qualified up front and got ourselves good track position and pit stall selection and good clean air. Now, we just have to go put a race together.”
All four SHR drivers qualified in the top-seven, with Kevin Harvick in the fifth position and Clint Bowyer seventh.
Ford drivrs gave their manufacturer four provisional positions in the top-five. Fellow-Ford driver Brad Keselowski qualified third, joining the SHR trio of Suarez, Almirola and Harvick in the top-five. The only non-Ford driver to qualify in the top-five was Chevrolet's Kurt Busch in fourth.
The two fastest Toyota drivers in qualifying were the Joe Gibbs racing duo of Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch. They qualified eighth and 10th, respectively.
Suarez knocking Almirola from the pole wasn't the first case of a driver losing the provisional pole to a teammate. Austin Dillon was the first driver out and held the provisional top spot until his Richard Childress Racing teammate Daniel Hemric went out and posted what was then the fastest lap. Hemric wound up sixth and Dillon ninth.
Keselowski also held the provisional pole position for a significant amount of time during the qualifying session.
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