Alex Bowman Narrowly Defeats Red-Hot Josh Berry for Homestead Pole
Alex Bowman, who heads into this weekend's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a quietly strong start to the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, will roll from the pole position on the starting grid.
STARTING LINEUP: Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead
The driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet rocketed to his sixth-career pole position with an impressive lap time of 31.982 seconds (168.845 mph) in Saturday afternoon's qualifying session, which equates to the fastest lap ever turned at the 1.5-mile speedway in the Next Gen car, which debuted in 2022.
After five races in the 2025 season, Bowman ranks fifth in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, and he's done so due to surgical consistency. Bowman has four top-10 finishes through the opening five races, including back-to-back seventh-place runs at Phoenix and Las Vegas over the last two races.
"Yeah, I mean, we've overcome a lot this year," Bowman said after collecting his first pole position of the 2025 season. "I think a lot of people don't realize the amount of things we've had go wrong throughout our races. Honestly, like those seventh-place finishes are pretty good, all things considered."
Bowman will now shift his focus to Sunday's race, where he'll look to continue building momentum this season. While Bowman knows his car is great in single-lap speed, he knows he and crew chief Blake Harris will need to figure out something overnight to improve their long-run pace to have a chance to win the race.
"Yeah, just need to have everything go right, and execute all day. I feel like we've got some work to do for tomorrow in the long run, for sure, but at least we're starting up front, Bowman explained. "We'll have a good pit stall. Putting our best foot forward so far."
Joining Bowman on Row 1 of the starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race will be Josh Berry, the driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, who just seems to not be able to do any wrong right now.
Berry, who collected his first career win a weekend ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, notched his fourth top-10 starting spot of the opening six races, and his third top-five qualifying run.
"Yeah, I don't know. Honestly, man, just so happy with everyone on this 21 team. I told them, man, they're making me look good right now. We've just got really good cars. Just thank you to everybody on the 21 team everybody at Wood Brothers Racing, at Team Penske, DEX Imaging for coming on board. Starting on the front row is a really good start."
Berry says that after an unexpected hot start to the season, he and the No. 21 team are just looking to keep it going week after week. Berry will look to score his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series win, and third consecutive top-five finish on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Noah Gragson turned in the best qualifying run of his Front Row Motorsports tenure, as he secured the third starting spot for Sunday's race. Gragson was the fifth driver to take to the track in qualifying, and he held onto the provisional pole position until Bowman, third-from-the-last to take a lap, bumped him off.
Chase Briscoe, who participated in a Goodyear Tire Test at Charlotte Motor Speedway earlier this week, will start from the fourth position in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Right behind Briscoe on the scoring sheet were the other two drivers who participated in the tire test at Charlotte Motor Speedway, William Byron in fifth and Ryan Blaney in sixth.
John Hunter Nemechek kept his solid 2025 season going with a seventh-place qualifying run, while Austin Cindric, Bubba Wallace, and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400.
Tune into the NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, March 23. The race will be televised on FS1 and can be streamed on the FOX Sports App with a valid television provider login. Television coverage of the event will begin at 3:00 PM ET.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.