Bell Leads JGR Front Row Sweep in Talladega Qualifying
After three consecutive weekends of short track racing, the Cup series shifts into high gear by visiting the largest oval track on the circuit. The Next Gen cars will now get to stretch their legs on the 2.66-mile Talladega superspeedway. There are 39 cars entered in tomorrow’s race, and the starting field was set today with single-car qualifying.
Toyota flexed their muscle this afternoon when they took the top four spots in the opening round of qualifying. When the dust settled, Joe Gibbs Racing earned a sweep of the front row, with Christopher Bell getting pole position ahead of teammate Martin Truex Jr.
Bell turned a lap of 180.928 mph in his second run, which gave him his second career Cup pole. The driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry backed up his first round effort with another solid outing on the final run of the day.
"That was all my crew guys," Bell said. "I am very thankful to be in the position I am, driving the No. 20 Camry and we have a great team. This one is really big. Even from the first round to the second round, I could tell that my RPMs picked up really big going down the back straightaway. They were pretty big going down the flat straightaway. I don't know if the wind was an advantage to me. It definitely did not hurt. It's a pretty big stat for TRD to get a superspeedway pole."
With Toyota's strong qualifying results, Bell was asked if he thought they could stay up front during tomorrow's race. “That’s definitely going to be the goal – to try to get together and maintain our track position, but with pit strategy and pit cycles – something is going to happen where you get shuffled and lose track position. I think team strategy has been very important part of superspeedway racing and all of the Toyotas are going to have to work together if we want to win this one.”
Truex has never won a race on a superspeedway in 68 career starts. While starting up front helps, he will have to do it without engineer Nick Burton, who was ejected as part of the team’s penalty for failing inspection twice on Friday. The team also lost pit selection for this race as part of the penalty.
Daniel Hemric had an outstanding effort on Saturday and qualified the No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet 3rd. It will be an all-Daniel Row 2 with Daniel Suarez starting in 4th position. Kyle Larson was the top-qualifying Hendrick driver and Kurt Busch led the way for 23XI Racing. That team's owner, Denny Hamlin, qualified his No. 11 Camry just behind him in 7th.
William Byron, Bubba Wallace, and Tyler Reddick round out the rest of the top ten starters. Wallace earned his first Cup win here last year, and hopes to go back-to-back tomorrow. Wallace has three consecutive top-two finishes on superspeedways, including his first career Cup win here last October. Only four drivers have scored four in a row: Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt, Ernie Irvan, and Dale Jarrett.
Chevrolet has just two wins at Talladega in the past 16 races here. Justin Haley hopes to add to that, and just barely missed advancing to the final round. He starts 11th tomorrow. Last weekend's Bristol Dirt Race winner Kyle Busch will start alongside him in 12th. He was the only Toyota driver to miss the top ten during qualifying but the margin was paper-thin.
Joey Logano and Austin Dillon will start behind them in Row 7 with Brad Keselowski rounding out the top 15 starting positions. Keselowski has won at Talladega six times in 26 career starts, including this race last season. Daytona was a bright spot for RFK Racing this year, as the No. 6 Ford Mustang led a race-high 67 laps. While he’s been feast or famine here, the veteran driver is hungry for a win.
Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric starts 18th and Ryan Blaney qualified 22nd, as the three Team Penske drivers struggled to find qualifying speed. The race should be a different story though, as they are expected to make their way to the front of the field. Penske has won eight of the last 13 races here.
While Larson and Byron had fast cars, their teammates Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott did not. Those two will start 27th and 28th tomorrow. The good news is that starting positions simply do not matter as much at Talladega and Daytona. The key for race day is to have a solid race setup, which you can expect Hendrick Motorsports will have.
While there is a proponent of luck involved in being successful on superspeedways, it does require a specific skill set that not every driver has. Starting up front doesn't necessarily mean you will end up there as only one of the last six Talladega races was won by a driver starting in the first four rows.
The No. 47 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet of Ricky Stenhouse Jr failed inspection twice and car chief Travis Young was ejected. The Spire Motorsports No. 77 Chevrolet failed pre-qualifying inspection three times and driver Landon Cassill will have to make a pass-through on pit road at the soonest opportunity after the start of the race. The team was not permitted to qualify, lost pit stall selection, and car chief JR Norris was ejected.
Coverage for tomorrow’s GEICO 500 begins at 3 PM ET on FOX.
