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

Tom Gatto

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

The starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway was set by applying the statistical formula NASCAR is using for the majority of Cup races in 2021.

Drivers' starting positions for the FireKeepers Casino 400 (3 p.m. ET; NBCSN, TSN, 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)

NASCAR is conducting qualifying for eight Cup Series races in the 2021 season. Seven of those races have already been run; the one remaining race is the season-ending Championship 4 race at Phoenix Raceway in November.

Below is the starting lineup, which was set without qualifying, for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race on Michigan International Speedway's 2-mile oval.

MORE: Watch Sunday's NASCAR race live with fuboTV (free 7-day trial)

Who won the pole for the NASCAR race at Michigan?

Kyle Larson was assigned the top spot based on NASCAR's formula. He finished third in the previous race, the Verizon 200 at The Brickyard on Indianapolis Motor Speedway's road course. He also took over the series points lead from Denny Hamlin with two regular-season races remaining.

Larson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott will join him on the front row. Elliott finished fourth at the Brickyard for his 11th top-five finish of the season. Larson leads all drivers with 13 top-fives.

The drivers on the playoff bubble will not be starting too close to the front. Kevin Harvick will roll off eighth, Tyler Reddick will start 14th and Austin Dillon will start 26th. Starting eighth may not matter a lot to Harvick, though, because he has won the last three races at Michigan.

Matt DiBenedetto will start fourth after his fifth-place run at Indy. A win is his ticket to the playoffs because he trails 16th-place Reddick by 145 points in the standings. DiBenedetto is also racing for a job after Wood Brothers Racing replaced him for the 2022 season with Harrison Burton.

NASCAR starting lineup at Michigan

NASCAR used a mathematical formula to set the starting lineup for Sunday's race at Michigan International Speedway, the FireKeepers Casino 400. Thirty-seven cars were entered for the race.

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