Chris Buescher claimed his first career NASCAR Cup Series pole Saturday (April 30), laying down the best lap in qualifying at Dover Motor Speedway.
Buescher claimed the top starting spot for Sunday’s Drydene 400 with a speed of 160.149 mph.
The pole comes in what will be his 233rd career Cup start. It is also Buescher’s first overall NASCAR pole after not earning one in the Xfinity Series.
It also marks the first time since 2013 at Texas Motor Speedway that a RFK Racing car will start from the pole for a non-superspeedway NASCAR Cup race. The team’s last overall pole was in 2017 at Talladega Superspeedway.
“That’s just awesome right there,” Buescher told Fox Sports 1. “Good effort in practice in the first group. Found some speed and went out there and put down some really good laps. … That’s a heck of a start. Good momentum. Proud to do it here at Dover, I love this place. It’s a ride. We’re flying around here. That’s more throttle time than I think we’ve ever had at Dover.”
Buescher will be joined on the front row by Denny Hamlin (159.744 mph).
The top five was completed by Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney.
Filling out the top 10 is Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez, Bubba Wallace and Kyle Busch.
Click here for the starting lineup.
Practice
Prior to qualifying, two 20-minute practice sessions were held with the field split in half for each one.
The faster driver overall was Austin Cindric.
Cindric, who claims Dover as one of his favorite tracks, posted a top speed of 157.846 mph.
“The edges we’ve seen in this car is very small,” Cindric told Fox Sports 1. “Even the times I felt like I landed in the corner and got a bit neutral. You’re working with a couple of centimeters of sidewall flex before you have to really correct. It’s interesting, but this is a very tough race track for cars and we’re going a lot faster than I thought we would.”
The top five was completed by AJ Allmendinger (157.805…
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