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In qualifying at Saturday, the No. 12 Team Penske Ford of Ryan Blaney secured pole position at Bristol Motor Speedway. With a fast lap of 15.101s, he earned his 13th career pole and second at Bristol.
"Just kind of got free on Lap 1, and then it was like all right, gather yourself up in (Turns) 3 and 4 and try and get a second lap," said Blaney. "Luckily, the rear tires came in better the second lap in (Turns) 1 and 2, and then (Turns) 3 and 4 I thought was a really good corner. A really great job by the whole 12 boys. Our race car in practice was pretty good, and it was nice that we made some pretty good adjustments in qualifying with the pace being up ... Cool start to the weekend, now we got to do it for 500 laps, which should be fun."
Blaney will share the front row with championship leader Tyler Reddick in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota.
Chase Briscoe qualified third with Riley Herbst fourth in the best qualifying effort of his entire Cup career. Ty Gibbs was fifth, while Ross Chastain led the way for Chevrolet in sixth. Chris Buescher, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, and Carson Hocevar filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Alex Bowman, who is making his first start in five weeks after recovering from vertigo, qualified 27th. But the real surprise towards the back of the pack was his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, William Byron, who will start 34th.
Qualifying recap
Herbst, whose previous best start was sixth, led the first half of qualifying with a 15.147s. Chastain began the second half of qualifying, slotting in just 0.028s behind Herbst.
But the first to topple Herbst for P1 was Briscoe, lapping the half-mile 0.012s quicker than his fellow Toyota driver. Cindric had a shot at Briscoe, but bobbled on his second lap while tracking faster.
Herbst's 23XI teammate Reddick then burned out of the pits, heating up the tires in a clever move. The championship leader set the new benchmark with a 15.124s, 0.011 quicker than Briscoe.
Blaney then went fastest of all drivers, beating Reddick by over two hundredths and ending the Toyota stranglehold at the front. Gibbs had a chance to challenge, but slipped up off the bottom line during his second lap around the circuit.
There were no incidents during the qualifying session and all 37 entries recorded a time.
Finally, five cars will lose their pit stall selection and had a team member ejected due to issues in pre-race inspection.
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