With a 100.044 mph/87.765-second lap in the second of two rounds of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course on Sunday morning, William Byron claimed the pole for the inaugural Verizon 200 at the Brickyard. Byron’s pole-winning lap was the only lap of the session that surpassed the 100 mph mark.
“Thanks to Hendrick Motorsports; they build phenomenal road-course cars,” Byron said. “They’ve been super-fast. I hope we have the speed in the race from my end to back it up. We’ve definitely been doing a good job in qualifying. I’m glad we got qualifying back, because I feel like it’s one of our strengths on the #24 team. Looking forward to the race, and like I said, hope we can keep it up, there.”
Cup Series rookie Chase Briscoe, already with a NASCAR national series win on the Indy road course under his belt as the victor of the inaugural NASCAR Xfinity Series race winner there last year, qualified second to line up alongside Byron on the front row for the green flag.
“We’ve had some good runs on the road courses,” Briscoe said. “Obviously, with our points situation, we’ve got to win, so we can just go and whatever gives us the best track position, we’ll do.”
Three Hendrick Motorsports drivers were among the 12 drivers to advance to the second round of Sunday’s qualifying session and claimed spots within the first two rows of the race starting grid. Byron’s Hendrick teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, the top-two finishers a week earlier and Watkins Glen International and winners of two road-course races each already in 2020, qualified third and fourth to start the Verizon 200 in row two.
Daniel Suarez rounded out the top-five in qualifying to share row three on the starting grid with Martin Truex Jr.
Larson, the previous week’s winner at The Glen and the Cup Series wins leader with five victories, was the fastest in the opening round with a lap he posted early in the 25-minute round.
Austin Cindric, winner of Saturday’s Xfinity race on the IMS road course, was 13th in the opening round, fastest among drivers who didn’t advance to the final 10-minute round. He and Denny Hamlin claimed row-seven race starting positions.
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