NASCAR lineup at Las Vegas: Starting order, pole for Pennzoil 400 based on qualifying results

Tom Gatto

NASCAR lineup at Las Vegas: Starting order, pole for Pennzoil 400 based on qualifying results image

The starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 (3:49 p.m. ET green flag; Fox, TSN1, PRN) was determined via qualifying Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

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.

Starting pos. Driver Car No. Team
1 Christopher Bell 20 Joe Gibbs Racing
2 Kyle Larson 5 Hendrick Motorsports
3 Austin Cindric 2 Team Penske
4 Chase Briscoe 14 Stewart-Haas Racing
5 Chase Elliott 9 Hendrick Motorsports
6 Joey Logano 22 Team Penske
7 Tyler Reddick 8 Richard Childress Racing
8 Denny Hamlin 11 Joe Gibbs Racing
9 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing
10 Austin Dillon 3 Richard Childress Racing
11 Ryan Blaney 12 Team Penske
12 Martin Truex Jr. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing
13 Alex Bowman 48 Hendrick Motorsports
14 William Byron 24 Hendrick Motorsports
15 Brad Keselowski 6 RFK Racing
16 Daniel Hemric 16 Kaulig Racing
17 Bubba Wallace 23 23XI Racing
18 Ross Chastain 1 Trackhouse Racing
19 Harrison Burton 21 Wood Brothers Racing
20 Aric Almirola 10 Stewart-Haas Racing
21 Daniel Suarez 99 Trackhouse Racing
22 Michael McDowell 34 Front Row Motorsports
23 Erik Jones 43 Petty GMS Motorsports
24 Cole Custer 41 Stewart-Haas Racing
25 Kevin Harvick 4 Stewart-Haas Racing
26 Greg Biffle 44 NY Racing Team
27 Chris Buescher 17 RFK Racing
28 Justin Haley 31 Kaulig Racing
29 Corey LaJoie 7 Spire Motorsports
30 Todd Gilliland 38 Front Row Motorsports
31 Kurt Busch 45 23XI Racing
32 Ty Dillon 42 Petty GMS Motorsports
33 Cody Ware 51 Rick Ware Racing
34 Josh Bilicki 77 Spire Motorsports
35 BJ McLeod 78 Live Fast Motorsports
36 Garrett Smithley 15 Rick Ware Racing
37 Kyle Busch 18 Joe Gibbs Racing

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.