Hamlin Captures Fourth Cup Series Pole Of Season By 0.001 Seconds

Denny Hamlin, who assumed the NASCAR Cup Series point lead for the first time this season last weekend at Sonoma Raceway following power steering issues for Tyler Reddick, encountered more good luck on Saturday afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway, and the end result was his fourth pole position of the season.

Hamlin, who had a non-favorable qualifying order draw after a subpar finish last weekend at Sonoma, found himself atop the speed charts in qualifying as the list of cars remaining to go on track dwindled down. However, clouds were swiftly approaching the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway.

Fortunately, the track surface didn't become shaded from the sun until after the Ty Gibbs, the final driver to take to the track, completed his qualifying run. As a result, Hamlin was able to hang on for the pole position for Sunday's race over Kyle Larson by an extremely thin margin of 0.001 seconds.

“I’ve got to be honest with you. I got extremely lucky,” Hamlin admitted in his post-qualifying interview on TruTV. “Anyone who goes out right now beats me. I’m very confident in that. We got lucky that these last 12 guys just got stuck in the sun. The track is a very temperature-sensitive track that gets a little bit of sun on it, and it just slows way up. I think we got very fortunate with the timing of that.”

While Hamlin felt fortunate to hang on for the pole position, Larson, who will start from the second position, also felt lucky that he snagged the outside pole, as he didn't feel like he optimized his qualifying lap.

“I actually thought it was going to be worse than that,” Larson explained. “I didn’t get the best run to the green [flag], I was bouncing a little too much. And then, Turn 1, my car turned in better than I anticipated, so my angle was just a little bit off. And then, that made me a little tight off of [Turn] 2. And then into [Turn] 3, again the initial turn in turned well, but then I just started picking up a tight [condition] right before the bumps, and I was nervous.”

Even with the issues on his lap, Larson was able to secure the second starting spot for Sunday's race.

RFK Racing had a stellar performance in qualifying, as teammates Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski swept the second row of the starting lineup on Saturday afternoon.

Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, and William Byron capped off the top-10 starters for Sunday's eero 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Riley Herbst, the fastest driver in Friday's NASCAR Cup Series practice session, was only able to muster a lap time good enough for the 18th starting position for Sunday's race.

eero 400 Starting Lineup

1. 11 - Denny Hamlin
2. 5 - Kyle Larson
3. 17 - Chris Buescher
4. 6 - Brad Keselowski
5. 54 - Ty Gibbs
6. 20 - Christopher Bell
7. 19 - Chase Briscoe
8. 23 - Bubba Wallace
9. 9 - Chase Elliott
10. 24 - William Byron
11. 16 - A.J. Allmendinger
12. 48 - Alex Bowman
13. 45 - Tyler Reddick
14. 12 - Ryan Blaney
15. 77 - Carson Hocevar
16. 38 - Zane Smith
17. 42 - John Hunter Nemechek
18. 35 - Riley Herbst
19. 1 - Ross Chastain
20. 60 - Ryan Preece
21. 88 - Connor Zilisch
22. 43 - Erik Jones
23. 2 - Austin Cindric
24. 47 - Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
25. 3 - Austin Dillon
26. 7 - Daniel Suarez
27. 10 - Ty Dillon
28. 67 - Corey Heim
29. 34 - Todd Gilliland
30. 97 - Shane van Gisbergen
31. 22 - Joey Logano
32. 4 - Noah Gragson
33. 41 - Cole Custer
34. 21 - Josh Berry
35. 33 - Austin Hill
36. 44 - J.J. Yeley
37. 51 - Cody Ware
38. 71 - Michael McDowell

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