Busch Takes Daytona 500 Pole Over Briscoe; Heim, Allgaier Lock In

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- Kyle Busch, in his 21st attempt to win the Daytona 500, will start from the pole position behind the wheel of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing zone Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet.

This marks the first career Daytona 500 pole position for Busch, and now the 63-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner and two-time series champion will look to finally collect his first Harley J. Earl trophy from the top starting spot of Sunday's race.

Busch carried a confident demeanor during Wednesday's Daytona 500 Media Day, that demeanor continued, and according to Busch, his confidence has been bolstered due to his quick-building rapport with his new crew chief Jim Pohlman, who came over from JR Motorsports' No. 7 NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series team in the offseason.

"This guy did, he had all the confidence in the world," Busch said of Pohlman. "He said this is what we're going to do. We just set out to the plan that Jim laid out, and had a really good practice and be able put some good time on the car and maybe learn a couple of things and make the speed we need in order to come out and sit on the pole tonight."

Busch, who turned a fast qualifying lap time of 49.006 seconds in the final round of qualifying, was able to top Chase Briscoe, last year's Daytona 500 polesitter, by just 0.017 seconds to secure the Busch Light pole position.

His hunt for a Harley J. Earl Trophy will start from P1!@KyleBusch wins the #BuschLightPole at @DAYTONA! pic.twitter.com/jmjqPyqn0C
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) February 12, 2026

Now, Busch has a chance to do something that no driver has ever done, which is capture his first career Daytona 500 win after 20 previous attempts.

"Yeah, it's a box we've got to check, so here we are. This is an opportunity to be able to do that. And I've come down here a lot of years, and I think I've finished in about every position possible. It would be nice to close out 2026 with a win in the Daytona 500."

Incredibly, Busch's first Daytona 500 pole, will also serve as the first-ever pole position for Pohlman, and it comes in his first NASCAR Cup Series race atop the pit box.

"To come out swinging and get a Daytona 500 pole as a first race as a crew chief is pretty humbling for me," Pohlman said. "There's a lot of hype around it, and feels really good, obviously. But I think like to echo what they've said, here, you start the season off strong, and this is just one step of it."

Richard Childress, the Founder and CEO of Richard Childress Racing, is proud of the work that he has seen from Pohlman and the No. 8 team in the offseason.

"It's great. You know, getting Jim on and just watching how he fits into our family at RCR, it's great," Childress said. "I stand back and watch a lot, and to watch how they work this Winter, and the way they just do everything right now, I'm just happy and proud of all of them. And Kyle, we've got to get this [Daytona] 500 [win]."

Due to the Daytona 500's unique qualifying format, Busch and Briscoe are the only two drivers, who locked in their starting position on Wednesday night.

It wasn't another pole position, but Briscoe was proud to once again slide his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the front row for NASCAR's biggest race of the season, the Daytona 500, and he has more confidence on superspeedway tracks following his win at Talladega Superspeedway last Fall.

"You know at least, in my case, I had never been able to win on any superspeedway at any level. So finally getting to win one, I definitely feel like I'll be more confident in my moves," Briscoe stated. "You know, I haven't ran a superspeedway race since then, but I remember even Stenhouse coming up to me the week after Talladega, just telling me, like, 'After you get one, everything will click and it'll just be easier from now on.' I hope that's the case."

While the 36 Chartered entries, and Jimmie Johnson, who is using an Open Exemption Provisional, there were two spots in the Daytona 500 field up for grabs, reserved for the top two fastest "Open" entries in Wednesday night's qualifying session.

Corey Heim, the driver of the No. 67 23XI Racing Toyota, secured his first-career Daytona 500 start with a qualifying lap time of 49.138 seconds in the opening round of the session, which advanced him into the second round, where he would join nine other drivers in battling for the pole.

Ultimately, Heim settled for the fifth-fastest lap in the final round of the session, which means he will start from the third position in his America 250 Duel Qualifier race on Thursday. Heim was forced to sweat out the possibility of having to fend off two fellow "Open" entries in the final round of qualifying, which didn't materialize. In the end, Heim was proud of his team for the speed that they built into his car.

"I thought for a minute three of us were going to be in the final round and we were going to have to race it out. But, no, just to cap it all off is so impressive," Heim said in his post-qualifying press conference. "Thankful for 23XI Racing and Toyota, coming here with an "Open" car. A fourth team at 23XI, to be able to do that, is pretty impressive even for my eyes."

Justin Allgaier was the other "Open" entry driver to secure his place in the field with a qualifying lap time of 49.201 seconds. This will lock JR Motorsports into The Great American Race for the second consecutive season.

Going into his second Daytona 500 for JR Motorsports, Allgaier said he felt things would feel less intense. However, that was not the case, as he felt all kinds of pressure in locking into the field for the Daytona 500.

"I think it is interesting. I thought there would be less stress, and I felt like for me, the stress actually went up," Allgaier explained. "Because I just think the expectation of last year, everything we were able to accomplish. You know, the effort we put in. When you know something, and you're able to do it once, and you're able to kind of understand it, you feel like you're going to come back in a lot better capacity, and we did that."

Corey LaJoie was just 0.005 seconds off the time set by Allgaier, and as a result was the first "Open" entry driver on the outside looking in. The driver of the No. 99 RFK Racing Ford will look to advance to the Daytona 500 field by way of Thursday's America 250 Duels.

LaJoie will be among the six "Open" entry drivers battling it out for the final two starting positions in the Daytona 500 field through Thursday's America 250 Duels. Joining LaJoie in the scrap for the final transfer spots will be Anthony Alfredo (35th), Chandler Smith (41st), BJ McLeod (42nd), Casey Mears (43rd), and JJ Yeley (44th).

Noah Gragson, who initially clocked in with a lap time of 49.504 seconds, had his qualifying time disallowed after Gragson placed his left hand over the window net during his run for an aerodynamic advantage. NASCAR instituted a rule forcing drivers to keep both hands on the steering wheel for the 2026 season to keep them from doing this.

"Yeah, I completely forgot about that rule, so that one's on me," Gragson said after his qualifying run.

Gragson continued, "I feel like an idiot after that."

Due to the rules violation, Gragson was credited as the last-place driver in the qualifying session, and he'll have to drive from the rear of his Duel Qualifier race if he wants to gain a solid starting spot for Sunday's Daytona 500.

The only on-track activity for the NASCAR Cup Series on Thursday, February 12 will be the America 250 Duels at Daytona. The opening Duel Qualifier race, which will set the inside lane of the starting lineup, will begin at 7:00 PM ET and will be televised on FS1.

FS1 will then roll into coverage of the second America 250 Duel, which will set the even-numbered starting spots in the field. That race is scheduled to begin at 8:45 PM ET.

2026 Daytona 500 Qualifying Results

Pos	Car	Driver	Lap time	Speed
1	8	Kyle Busch (x)	49.006
2	19	Chase Briscoe (x)	49.023	183.587
3	60	Ryan Preece	49.061	183.445
4	11	Denny Hamlin	49.100	183.299
5	67*	Corey Heim (y)	49.148
6	48	Alex Bowman	49.152
7	5	Kyle Larson	49.158
8	17	Chris Buescher	49.184
9	9	Chase Elliott	49.220
10	22	Joey Logano	49.275
11	54	Ty Gibbs	49.184	182.986
12	3	Austin Dillon	49.185	182.983
13	20	Christopher Bell	49.197	182.938
14	40*	Justin Allgaier (y)	49.201	182.923
15	99*	Corey LaJoie (z)	49.205	182.908
16	42	John Hunter Nemechek	49.214	182.875
17	2	Austin Cindric	49.248	182.749
18	6	Brad Keselowski	49.252	182.734
19	38	Zane Smith	49.266	182.682
20	12	Ryan Blaney	49.269	182.671
21	71	Michael McDowell	49.280	182.630
22	24	William Byron	49.282	182.622
23	88	Connor Zilisch #	49.291	182.589
24	41	Cole Custer	49.322	182.474
25	43	Erik Jones	49.332	182.437
26	51	Cody Ware	49.350	182.371
27	21	Josh Berry	49.354	182.356
28	84*	Jimmie Johnson (OEP)	49.366	182.312
29	77	Carson Hocevar	49.427	182.087
30	23	Bubba Wallace	49.432	182.068
31	35	Riley Herbst	49.452	181.995
32	16	AJ Allmendinger	49.460	181.965
33	34	Todd Gilliland	49.460	181.965
34	1	Ross Chastain	49.483	181.881
35	62*	Anthony Alfredo (z)	49.485	181.873
36	10	Ty Dillon	49.497	181.829
37	97	Shane van Gisbergen	49.527	181.719
38	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	49.529	181.712
39	7	Daniel Suarez	49.552	181.627
40	45	Tyler Reddick	49.609	181.419
41	36*	Chandler Smith (z)	49.758	180.875
42	78*	BJ McLeod (z)	50.011	179.960
43	66*	Casey Mears (z)	50.233	179.165
44	44*	JJ Yeley (z)	50.482	178.281
45	4	Noah Gragson	0.000	0.000

(OEP) locked into Daytona 500 with Open Exemption Provisional
(x) indicates front row starter for 2026 Daytona 500
(y) indicates an "Open" entry that has secured a Daytona 500 starting spot
(z) indicates an "Open" entry still fighting for a starting spot in Thursday's Duels
# indicates Rookie of the Year Contender
* indicates "Open" entry

2026 Daytona 500 Qualifying Results

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