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

Tom Gatto

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

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

Drivers' starting positions for the Buschy McBusch Race 400 (3 p.m. ET; FS1, 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 and practice for just eight Cup Series races in the 2021 season. Six races in that group remain, starting with the May 23 event at Circuit of the Americas, a road course outside Austin, Texas.

Below is the starting lineup, which was set without qualifying, for Sunday's NASCAR race on the 1.5-mile track at Kansas Speedway.

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

Who won the pole for the NASCAR race at Kansas?

Brad Keselowski is the polesitter for Sunday's race based on NASCAR's mathematical formula. Keselowski pulled off a last-lap pass to win last weekend's race at Talladega. The Team Penske driver is sixth in the Cup Series point standings through 10 races but is eligible for the Cup Series playoffs following his win. He has already won twice at Kansas in his career, in 2011 and 2019. 

The other driver on the front row Sunday will be William Byron. The Hendrick Motorsports driver is fourth in the point standings following his runner-up finish to Keselowski at Talladega.

Michael McDowell, Kevin Harvick, Matt DiBenedetto, Austin Dillon, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch and Cole Custer complete the top 10.

A historical note: The pole winner has won six times in the 30 previous Cup Series races at Kansas (20 percent). The last one to do it was Harvick in 2018. 

NASCAR starting lineup at Kansas

The starting lineup for Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway was determined through a mathematical formula, which produced this starting lineup for the Busch McBusch Race 400 without qualifying:

Start pos. Driver Car No. Team
1 Brad Keselowski 2 Team Penske
2 William Byron 24 Hendrick Motorsports
3 Michael McDowell 34 Front Row Motorsports
4 Kevin Harvick 4 Stewart-Haas Racing
5 Matt DiBenedetto 21 Wood Brothers Racing
6 Austin Dillon 3 Richard Childress Racing
7 Ryan Blaney 12 Team Penske
8 Christopher Bell 20 Joe Gibbs Racing
9 Kyle Busch 18 Joe Gibbs Racing
10 Cole Custer 41 Stewart-Haas Racing
11 Tyler Reddick 8 Richard Childress Racing
12 Ryan Preece 37 JTG Daugherty Racing
13 Bubba Wallace 23 23XI Racing
14 Ryan Newman 6 Roush Fenway Racing
15 Martin Truex Jr. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing
16 Chris Buescher 17 Roush Fenway Racing
17 Chase Elliott 9 Hendrick Motorsports
18 Aric Almirola 10 Stewart-Haas Racing
19 Chase Briscoe 14 Stewart-Haas Racing
20 Denny Hamlin 11 Joe Gibbs Racing
21 Daniel Suarez 99 Trackhouse Racing Team
22 Anthony Alfredo 38 Front Row Motorsports
23 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing
24 Ross Chastain 42 Chip Ganassi Racing
25 Alex Bowman 48 Hendrick Motorsports
26 Corey LaJoie 7 Spire Motorsports
27 Erik Jones 43 Richard Petty Motorsports
28 Kurt Busch 1 Chip Ganassi Racing
29 Joey Logano 22 Team Penske
30 BJ McLeod 78 Live Fast Motorsports
31 Justin Haley 77 Spire Motorsports
32 Kyle Larson 5 Hendrick Motorsports
33 Cody Ware 51 Petty Ware Racing
34 Quin Houff 00 StarCom Racing
35 Joey Gase 15 Rick Ware Racing
36 Garrett Smithley 53 Rick Ware Racing
37 Josh Bilicki 52 Rick Ware Racing
38 Austin Cindric 33 Team Penske
39 Matt Mills 55 BJ McLeod Motorsports

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.