Advantage Denny Hamlin; Championship 4 Driver Scores Phoenix Pole

For 20 years, Denny Hamlin has tried, unsuccessfully, to capture a NASCAR Cup Series championship. It's becoming very clear that Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway could very well be the best shot the 60-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner has ever had at hoisting the Bill France Cup.

In Saturday's qualifying session, Hamlin turned the quickest lap of anyone, a 26.914-second (133.759 mph) circuit around the 1-mile oval in Avondale, AZ. The 44-year-old racer, who is defying father time with six wins this season, took home his fifth pole of the campaign with the incredible lap on Saturday.

Starting Lineup: NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race

And while winning the Busch Light pole award is a far cry from capturing a win in the championship-deciding race, Hamlin will give his ailing father, who will watch Sunday's race from home, something to smile about as he leads the field to green.

The pole-winning run equaled the 48th pole position of Hamlin's illustrious NASCAR Cup Series career, and it may turn out to be the most important pole of his career if he can take the top qualifying spot and seize control of Sunday's race, and with it control of the championship battle throughout the afternoon.

While he understands the pole is important, Hamlin feels the advantage of the pole at Phoenix, in particular, is not as big of an advantage as it is elsewhere.

"I mean, it is important. I think it's a little bit less than normal, just simply because the fast cars are going to make their way to the front, especially with this new tire, and we have some good fall-off," Hamlin said in a post-qualifying press conference. "The timing line got moved back with the first [pit] stall. There's an advantage, it's just small."

In Friday's practice session, Hamlin experienced clutch and brake issues with his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. According to Hamlin, those issues didn't crop back up in his single lap on track on Saturday.

"When everything is cool, it seems to be ok. Today, everything felt pretty normal to me," Hamlin explained. "There was nothing that got my attention."

Even with how good Hamlin's lap in qualifying was, the advantage he gained over his Championship 4 competitors was minimal, as he was followed on the speed charts by William Byron and Kyle Larson, who qualified second and third.

Byron, who finds himself in the Championship 4 for the third consecutive season, was possibly the quietest driver on the stage following Saturday's qualifying session, but the driver of the iconic No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet feels good about his chances on Sunday.

"I feel good. I think so far, it's kind of what we've been working on and trying to improve. I'm optimistic. I think everything so far this weekend has been pretty solid," Byron said after collecting the runner-up starting spot.

And Larson, who will start right behind the Hamlin/Byron front row, really liked his No. 5 Chevrolet in practice, but admits practice can sometimes be deceiving.

"I think for me, feel-wise, it doesn't feel way different than normal, like I was expecting. But I feel like pace-wise, it seemed a little bit better than what I have been like in other practices here in years past. But it's so hard to get a true judge on things in practice," Larson stated.

Austin Cindric led the Team Penske brigade, which is expected to be very competitive -- as always -- at Phoenix Raceway this weekend, and he'll start from the fourth position in Sunday's race. Ryan Blaney, Cindric's teammate, snagged the fifth starting spot.

Carson Hocevar, Josh Berry, Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher, and Joey Logano rounded out the top-10 qualifers for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race.

While three of the four Championship 4 contenders will start from the top-three positions, Chase Briscoe, who suffered a flat tire in Friday's practice session, was only able to muster a 12th-place qualifying effort.

It wasn't the qualifying effort that the seven-time pole sitter was looking for, but Briscoe was actually pleased that his lap ranked where it did all things considered.

"Yesterday, it definitely wasn't smooth by any means. But I would say we made improvements on it. And yeah, I felt like truthfully, that was just a bad lap that I ran, and I was kind of surprised it was even 12th to a certain extent," Briscoe said. "I know they're going to continue to make it better, and like Denny was saying, there's a ton of fall-off. Good cars are going to be able to go to the front."

Briscoe, who has scored three wins in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing and is competing for the first time in the Championship 4, will look to rally from the bottom of the Championship 4 fight to the top by the end of the race.

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