Michael McDowell beat teammate Todd Gilliland to pole place with a lap of 49.136s across the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Each drivers are dealing with a must-win state of affairs and led a legion of Fords on the entrance of the sphere, sweeping the primary three rows.
For McDowell, that is his fourth pole of the season and his third on a drafting observe. He had zero poles within the earlier 16 years of his Cup profession, however is now profiting from FRM’s Tier 1 standing throughout the Ford group and a technical alliance with Group Penske.
“I am simply so happy with all people at Entrance Row Motorsports,” mentioned McDowell. “To have each vehicles on the entrance row is simply superb. It is only a testomony to how laborious everyone seems to be working. We all know we’ve got two photographs left right here, however this can be a massive weekend for us. To have each vehicles up entrance is de facto necessary. Hopefully, we are able to keep up entrance, management the race, and provides ourselves a preventing likelihood to get into these playoffs.”
Michael McDowell, Entrance Row Motorsports, Love’s Journey Stops Ford Mustang
Photograph by: Matthew T. Thacker / NKP / Motorsport Pictures
Gilliland was 0.098s shy of incomes his first-career pole. Beforehand, he finest begin was third at Talladega. “I needed it extraordinarily unhealthy,” he informed NBC. “We undoubtedly have a automotive that is quick sufficient to go win this race tomorrow.”
Penske’s Joey Logano will begin third, adopted by the Stewart-Haas trio of Ryan Preece, Josh Berry and Chase Briscoe. William Byron was the top-qualifying Chevrolet driver in seventh, breaking apart the Blue Oval get together. Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson, and Chase Elliott crammed out the rest of the top-ten.
Trying on the drivers within the midst of the playoff factors battle, Chris Buescher was the highest qualifier in thirteenth.
