NASCAR lineup at Homestead: Starting order, pole for Sunday's race without qualifying

Tom Gatto

NASCAR lineup at Homestead: Starting order, pole for Sunday's race without qualifying image

The starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway was set by applying the statistical formula that NASCAR is using for the majority of its 2021 races.

Drivers' starting positions for the Dixie Vodka 400 (3:30 p.m. ET; Fox, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) were based on four factors:

  • Driver's finishing position from the previous race (25 percent)
  • Car owner's finishing position from the previous race (25 percent)
  • Team owner points ranking (35 percent)
  • Fastest lap from the previous race (15 percent)

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Below is the starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR race on the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami intermediate track and how it was set without qualifying.

Who won the pole for the NASCAR race at Homestead?

Denny Hamlin gained the pole position for Sunday's race by virtue of the mathematical formula that NASCAR uses to set starting lineups without qualifying. Hamlin leads the Cup Series point standings after two races and is the only driver with two top-five finishes this season. 

Joining Hamlin on the front row will be Joey Logano, who finished second to Christopher Bell in last weekend's Cup race on the Daytona Road Course. Bell is third on the starting grid for the Homestead race. Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch round out the top five.

Qualifying will be held for eight Cup Series races total in 2021 as NASCAR limits the amount of time teams need to spend at the track in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next qualifying session will be in late March for the dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

NASCAR starting lineup at Homestead

The starting lineup for Sunday's race at Homestead was determined through a mathematical formula NASCAR adopted late in the 2020 season. The same procedure for setting lineups without qualifying is being used for the majority of races in 2021.

The formula produced this starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR race at Homestead-Miami Speedway:

Driver Car No. Team
Denny Hamlin 11 Joe Gibbs Racing
Joey Logano 22 Team Penske
Christopher Bell 20 Joe Gibbs Racing
Kevin Harvick 4 Stewart-Haas Racing
Kurt Busch 1 Chip Ganassi Racing
Michael McDowell 34 Front Row Motorsports
Brad Keselowski 2 Team Penske
Ryan Preece 37 JTG Daugherty Racing
Martin Truex Jr. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing
Cole Custer 41 Stewart-Haas Racing
Chase Elliott 9 Hendrick Motorsports
Chris Buescher 17 Roush Fenway Racing
Alex Bowman 48 Hendrick Motorsports
Ryan Blaney 12 Team Penske
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing
Aric Almirola 10 Stewart-Haas Racing
Kyle Larson 5 Hendrick Motorsports
Erik Jones 43 Richard Petty Motorsports
Bubba Wallace 23 23XI Racing
Justin Haley 77 Spire Motorsports
Daniel Suarez 99 TrackHouse Racing
Austin Dillon 3 Richard Childress Racing
Ryan Newman 6 Roush Fenway Racing
Kyle Busch 18 Joe Gibbs Racing
Corey LaJoie 7 Spire Motorsports
Cody Ware 51 Petty Ware Racing
Anthony Alfredo 38 Front Row Motorsports
Garrett Smithley 53 Rick Ware Racing
James Davison 15 Rick Ware Racing
Chase Briscoe 14 Stewart-Haas Racing
William Byron 24 Hendrick Motorsports
Ross Chastain 42 Chip Ganassi Racing
Timmy Hill 66 Motorsports Business Management
BJ McLeod 78 Live Fast Motorsports
Tyler Reddick 8 Richard Childress Racing
Josh Bilicki 52 Rick Ware Racing
Matt DiBenedetto 21 Wood Brothers Racing
Quin Houff 00 StarCom 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.