Logano Turns In Impressive Run For Gateway Pole; Full Starting Lineup

For the most part, the Next Gen car has made competition in the NASCAR Cup Series closer than it has ever been, at least from a lap time standpoint. However, on Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway, Joey Logano was in a league all of his own in qualifying for Sunday's Enjoy Illinois 300.

The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, who is seeking a fourth title, blasted off in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford, and the end result was an incredible 32.817-second (137.124 mph) lap time. How fast was Logano? Well, the next closest competitor, Kyle Larson, was nearly three tenths of a second slower than Logano's lap time.

Officially, Logano secured the pole position by a margin of 0.276 seconds over Larson.

After turning a lap that much better than the rest of the field, Logano admitted that he didn't even feel like he did that great of a job during his run around the track.

"I even felt like my lap was like average," Logano recalled. "I mean, I did okay, but it wasn't like, 'Man, I nailed it,' not that I had much in it. I didn't make a mistake, at least."

This pole-winning run will mark the 35th of Logano's 643-race NASCAR Cup Series career, and it is the second pole of the season for the Team Penske driver.

Logano, who got off to a sluggish start to the 2026 season, has come to life. He now has two wins on the year, and after a ninth-place finish last weekend at Darlington, he ranks ninth in the Chase Grid. Logano has a massive opportunity to take a step forward on Sunday at Gateway.

"Well, the guys are doing a good job, and this is a racetrack that we had circled that we need to capitalize on, right? We know our points situation. We need to score max points here," Logano said. "And starting up front will help that for sure. Just gotta manage the strategy. Definitely got a fast car though. The Shell/Pennzoil Mustang in race trim was really good. Short run, long run, obviously, qualifying was spectacular."

Larson, the defending series champion, comes into this race on a 50-race losing skid. He'll look to snap the drought on Sunday from the second starting spot.

Ryan Blaney, who has had close calls for the win at World Wide Technology Raceway only to come up empty, will roll from the starting grid in the third position. Blaney was the fastest driver in Saturday's NASCAR Cup Series practice session.

Christopher Bell, last week's winner at Darlington Raceway, qualified fourth for the Enjoy Illinois 300. With the win last week, Bell finds himself second in the Chase Grid and is just 12 points behind Denny Hamlin, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate.

The top-10 starting positions were completely swept by Chase contenders.

Chase Briscoe, Carson Hocevar, Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs, and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for the race.

Chase contenders starting outside of the top-10 include: Austin Cindric (13th), Ryan Preece (14th), Daniel Suarez (15th), Tyler Reddick (18th), Chris Buescher (21st), and William Byron (24th).

Buescher's No. 17 RFK Racing Ford failed pre-race inspection twice which led to penalties being levied on the driver and his team. Buescher lost his pit selection for the race, and his car chief was ejected for the remainder of the weekend.

Official Enjoy Illinois 300 Starting Lineup

Rank	Car	Driver	Lap time (sec)	Speed (mph)
1	22	Joey Logano (C)	32.817	137.124
2	5	Kyle Larson (C)	33.093	135.980
3	12	Ryan Blaney (C)	33.113	135.898
4	20	Christopher Bell (C)	33.145	135.767
5	19	Chase Briscoe (C)	33.199	135.546
6	77	Carson Hocevar (C)	33.236	135.395
7	23	Bubba Wallace (C)	33.246	135.355
8	9	Chase Elliott (C)	33.259	135.302
9	54	Ty Gibbs (C)	33.261	135.294
10	11	Denny Hamlin (C)	33.312	135.086
11	48	Alex Bowman	33.407	134.702
12	38	Zane Smith	33.420	134.650
13	2	Austin Cindric (C)	33.441	134.565
14	60	Ryan Preece (C)	33.487	134.381
15	7	Daniel Suarez (C)	33.492	134.360
16	21	Josh Berry	33.503	134.316
17	16	AJ Allmendinger	33.547	134.140
18	45	Tyler Reddick (C)	33.557	134.100
19	88	Connor Zilisch #	33.572	134.040
20	1	Ross Chastain	33.583	133.996
21	17	Chris Buescher (C)	33.607	133.901
22	3	Austin Dillon	33.624	133.833
23	6	Brad Keselowski	33.689	133.575
24	24	William Byron (C)	33.700	133.531
25	43	Erik Jones	33.713	133.480
26	41	Cole Custer	33.725	133.432
27	33	Austin Hill (i)	33.768	133.262
28	42	John Hunter Nemechek	33.810	133.097
29	71	Michael McDowell	33.878	132.830
30	51	Cody Ware	33.926	132.642
31	4	Noah Gragson	33.934	132.610
32	10	Ty Dillon	33.943	132.575
33	35	Riley Herbst	34.062	132.112
34	34	Todd Gilliland	34.065	132.100
35	97	Shane van Gisbergen	34.186	131.633
36	47	Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.	34.215	131.521

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