Chase Briscoe Bumps Austin Hill for Talladega Cup Series Pole

Austin Hill was so close to scoring his first NASCAR Cup Series pole position on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway that he could taste it. Unfortunately, the final car to head onto the track in the final round of qualifying for Sunday's YellaWood 500 was Chase Briscoe, the driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Briscoe, who was the fastest driver in the opening round of qualifying, was able to back that result up with the quickest lap time in the final round of the session, which allowed him to claim the pole position. Briscoe's fast lap time was a 51.466-second (186.065 mph) circuit around the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway.

Last season, Briscoe secured a series-best seven pole positions. The pole-winning run on Saturday marked his first pole in 34 tries this season.

"Yeah, it feels great. It's definitely been a while," Briscoe admitted. "I think last year, we had seven, and this year, we've just not been as good as qualifiers as we were last year for whatever reason. Yeah, just testament to these guys. This is definitely one of those team pole sessions. There's not a whole lot I can really do to benefit it, but I can certainly screw it up."

Hill slotted in with the runner-up starting spot as his lap clocked in 0.032 seconds off the time set by Briscoe. While he was disappointed to miss out on the pole, Hill was encouraged by the great qualifying effort.

"Congrats to the No. 19 [team]. We really wanted to get that pole, but it's nice to be on the front row, we're not starting in the back in 30th or something. All-in-all, solid effort," Hill said.

Now, Hill, who was tapped by Rchard Childress Racing to take over in the NASCAR Cup Series following the unexpected death of Kyle Busch in May, knows his car will drive better near the front of the field on Sunday than he's experienced in most of his Cup starts at superspeedways.

"Yeah, that was a great lap by everyone on this RCR/ECR United Rentals Chevrolet team. We needed this. You know, it gives us a lot of confidence going into the race tomorrow. I don't know how it's going to drive tomorrow, but it'll be fine," Hill explained. "It always is better when you're up front and you're in that cleaner air, it's going to drive better up front."

Connor Zilisch, who has suffered from a very rough rookie season in the NASCAR Cup Series, will start from the third position on Sunday, as he chases his first career victory, and he'll be joined in Row 2 by Shane van Gisbergen, his Trackhouse Racing teammate.

Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Larson rounded out the top-10 fastest drivers in the qualifying session.

Chase contenders starting outside the top-10 include Daniel Suarez (13th), Joey Logano (16th), William Byron (17th), Chase Elliott (18th), Ryan Preece (19th), Bubba Wallace (25th), Carson Hocevar (26th), Ryan Blaney (27th), Austin Cindric (28th), and Tyler Reddick (33rd).

YellaWood 500 Starting Lineup

Pos	Car	Driver	Lap time	Speed
1	19	Chase Briscoe (C)	51.466	186.065
2	33	Austin Hill (i)	51.498	185.949
3	88	Connor Zilisch #	51.518	185.877
4	97	Shane van Gisbergen	51.565	185.707
5	17	Chris Buescher (C)	51.593	185.607
6	20	Christopher Bell (C)	51.609	185.549
7	48	Alex Bowman	51.621	185.506
8	54	Ty Gibbs (C)	51.678	185.301
9	11	Denny Hamlin (C)	51.734	185.101
10	5	Kyle Larson (C)	51.812	184.822
11	51	Cody Ware	51.802	184.858
12	3	Austin Dillon	51.805	184.847
13	7	Daniel Suarez (C)	51.821	184.790
14	35	Riley Herbst	51.825	184.776
15	1	Ross Chastain	51.841	184.719
16	22	Joey Logano (C)	51.848	184.694
17	24	William Byron (C)	51.851	184.683
18	9	Chase Elliott (C)	51.862	184.644
19	60	Ryan Preece (C)	51.862	184.644
20	41	Cole Custer	51.866	184.630
21	21	Josh Berry	51.898	184.516
22	6	Brad Keselowski	51.943	184.356
23	71	Michael McDowell	51.956	184.310
24	47	Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.	51.969	184.264
25	23	Bubba Wallace (C)	51.980	184.225
26	77	Carson Hocevar (C)	51.984	184.211
27	12	Ryan Blaney (C)	52.036	184.026
28	2	Austin Cindric (C)	52.036	184.026
29	43	Erik Jones	52.075	183.889
30	10	Ty Dillon	52.086	183.850
31	38	Zane Smith	52.112	183.758
32	42	John Hunter Nemechek	52.131	183.691
33	45	Tyler Reddick (C)	52.146	183.638
34	62	Casey Mears *	52.263	183.227
35	34	Todd Gilliland	52.264	183.224
36	78	Daniel Dye (i) *	52.325	183.010
37	16	AJ Allmendinger	52.456	182.553
38	44	Joey Gase (i) *	52.570	182.157
39	4	Noah Gragson	52.674	181.797
40	66	Gray Gaulding (i) *	52.875	181.106

(C) indicates a Chase contender
# indicates a Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates a driver ineligible to score points
* indicates an "Open" entry

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