Starting Lineup | Qualifying Results
Kevin Harvick earned the pole position for Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Harvick turned a lap of 194.448 mph around the 2.66-mile superspeedway to take the top spot in Sunday’s 10th race of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season. It’s his third pole at a restrictor-plate track and his first since he took the top position at Talladega back in 2005.
“I’m really proud of our team and the first thing I want to say is a big thank you to Roush Yates Engines, and the guys that work on this car,” Harvick said. “They put so much effort into things like this.”
Harvick earned his 22nd career pole and first of the season.
“We’ve really never qualified this well,” Harvick added. They’ve made some big improvements obviously over the offseason and then there was the restrictor-plate change overnight. With everything that’s happened, it’s just a huge credit to this team.
“Starting up front will definitely be good.”
Kurt Busch will start second Sunday to make it an all Ford and Stewart-Haas Racing front row.
“Today’s Kevin’s day,” Busch said. “Tomorrow is going to be our day.”
Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott rounded out the top five.
“It feels okay, I think for us the big deal is that the last couple restrictor plate races we’ve qualified really poorly,” Truex Jr. said. “Came here with a little more effort on trying to have a faster race car and hopefully qualify good, stay up front and stay out of the wrecks. So far, so good. The guys did a really nice job. Those two guys on the front row (Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch) absolutely smoked us, but third is pretty good so we’ll take that. It’s a big jump from the last couple times here.”
Erik Jones, defending race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Clint Bowyer, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski completed the first 10 qualifiers.
Kyle Busch will start 19th in pursuit of his fourth straight Cup win.
Aric Almirola will take the green flag from the last starting spot after he had a tire go down resulting in his car to spin out during his first round qualifying attempt.
Harvick was on his up-to-speed lap behind Almirola and ran over some debris. While the session went under the red flag for clean-up, Harvick was allowed to change the right-side tires because the tires had cuts from the debris. Harvick also was fastest in Round 1.
Motor Racing Network’s live coverage of Sunday’s GEICO 500 will start at 1 p.m. ET.
