A 94.784-second/95.712 mph lap in the second and final round of multi-car qualifying at Sonoma Raceway on Saturday garnered Kyle Larson the pole for Sunday’s Toyota Save Mart 350, the first road-course race of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. It’s Larson’s first pole of 2019 but his third-straight pole at Sonoma.
"It’s cool to get a third pole in a row here at my home track,” Larson, a California native, said. "Thanks to Credit One Bank and all my guys for preparing another fast car. We’ll see if we can do a little better tomorrow than we typically do during the race.”
Chevrolet swept the front row of Sunday’s starting grid when William Byron qualified second.
“Road courses have been a challenge for me, especially this place,” Byron said. "I feel like it’s the hardest place to come as a driver with inexperience, knowing what your car needs to do and how you need to manage everything. I feel like this is a good weekend so far. We’ve had good speed, really, throughout the weekend. And we’re just going to have to put it in the race and be realistic with the race. It think it’s going to be a challenge, for sure, but I’m looking forward to it."
Joey Logano qualified third, and he’ll share the second row for the start of Sunday’s race with Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Chase Elliott.
“I feel like my lap was pretty good. I was just a little loose,” Logao said. “I feel like I got through it mainly pretty decent. I got a little loose off of 10. If I could find one spot, I got too loose off 10 trying to throttle up too aggressively and stuck half my left sides up in the dirt and got loose and knocked a few mile an hour off on the exit compared to what I would have been. Maybe that is a 10th, maybe a half a 10th. I don't know. I have to go back and look. All I needed was 0.09, so that is probably the spot I am looking at.”
Larson was fastest in both rounds of qualifying. His round-leading lap in the opening round clocked in at 94.598 seconds/95.901 mph.
After posting a lap second to Larson on the speed chart in round one, Daniel Suarez qualified fifth.
With Chevrolet and Ford drivers closing Toyota out of the top-five in qualifying, Denny Hamlin was the fastest qualifying Toyota driver in sixth.
Three of the four Joe Gibbs Racing teammates qualified together in the top-10. Hamlin was followed by Kyle Busch and defending race winner Martin Truex Jr. in seventh and eighth. The fourth JGR driver, Erik Jones, wound up 32nd after blowing a tire in the opening round.
“I didn’t know it was a flat majority of the lap, and it finally blew coming down the frontstretch,” Jones said. “It is pretty unfortunate; we had a top 15 car for qualifying, and now, we are starting 32nd. It is the story of the whole year. Nothing has really gone our way to this point, and I guess it’s not really changing this weekend yet. We will get it together for tomorrow and try to come through the field.
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