The grid is set for Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway. Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney earned pole position in the No. 12 Ford, running a fast lap of 22.225s. He will share the front row with Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, who missed the pole by 0.050s.
“I appreciate the cloud,” said Blaney after practice. “I think a handful of us got the benefit of the cloud. We had a really good day. I thought our car was decent in practice. Qualifying is always super tough here. After running 50 or 60 laps in practice here, you’re going to go out and run about three seconds faster than what your last lap was. You just hope you hit it right. The No. 12 car was great … I’m excited for tomorrow. It’s going to be a fun night under the lights. Hopefully we got something for them.”
Josh Berry qualified third, Ty Gibbs fourth, and William Byron fifth. Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski, and Joey Logano filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Qualifying recap
The first lap was the ‘money’ lap as the tires fell off too much to make the second lap worth it. Keselowski set the early benchmark at a 22.491s, and held P1 until RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece set a 22.435s lap.
They remained 1-2 for a bit, but Berry was the next driver to take provisional pole, going much faster with a 22.281s lap. It was then Briscoe who eclipsed Berry by just 0.006s, and finally Blaney who went out near the very end of the session.
There were no incidents and 35 of the 36 entries put down a lap. Cody Ware, who spun in practice, did not.
Austin Cindric entered this race with the 16th and final spot inside the Chase field, and he will start 23rd.
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