Ten drivers competed for the pole position with single-car, single-lap runs around Las Vegas’s 1.5-mile oval. The field was split into two groups for qualifying after practice, and the five fastest cars in each group in the first round advanced to the second round.
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On-track qualifying is scheduled for all races this season. It was stopped early in the 2020 season and limited to eight races in the 2021 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. NASCAR scaled back qualifying to help reduce the amount of time teams spent at the track.
Who won the pole for the NASCAR race at Las Vegas?
Christopher Bell earned his first career pole in Saturday’s qualifying. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was the fifth of 10 drivers to make runs in the second and final round.
His 182.673 mph average speed on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval was more than six-tenths of a second faster than runner-up Kyle Larson (182.014).
Larson will be looking to go back-to-back in the Vegas spring race. He won at the track last March, his first of a series-high 10 wins during his Cup Series championship season.
Starting lineup for Las Vegas race
Thirty-seven Cup Series teams were entered for Sunday’s race: all 36 charter teams and the open NY Racing Team with Greg Biffle as its driver.
Kyle Busch will begin at the rear of the field in a backup car after crashing in practice Saturday. The left rear tire on Busch’s No. 18 car went flat, causing the car to spin into the outside wall.
