By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Chase Elliott won the pole position for Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen at Wakins Glen (N.Y.) International (3 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) making a strong statement for his championship chases as the regular season winds down.
Elliott turned a lap of 125.147 mph around the 3.377-mile road course in the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet besting his teammate, reigning series champion Kyle Larson by a slight .015-seconds to claim his third pole position of the season and the 12th of this career.
It is a fitting front row for the race start with Elliott and Larson combining for five road course wins just last year. Elliott is a two-time Watkins Glen winner – earning his career first trophy there in 2018 with seven road course victories. Larson is the defending race winner.
“I feel like there’s still work to do there from where we were in practice,’’ the 26-year old Elliott said. “Feel like there’s a couple parts of the track I want to put together better. Just really hard to hit all of it. It’s just so fast. The pace is just so high in this car here.
“I feel like from what I remember with so much throttle you’re carrying, a little bit really goes a long way.’’
Former DAYTONA 500 winner and road course ace Michael McDowell will share the second row with another Hendrick driver, William Byron. Richard Childress Racing’s Tyler Reddick – who won the series’ last road course event at Indianapolis three weeks ago – was fifth fastest and will start alongside Xfinity Series championship contender A.J. Allmendinger.
Ford drivers Chris Buescher and rookie Austin Cindric make up row eight followed by Daniel Suárez and the top-qualifying Toyota driven by Kyle Busch.
Also of note, Christopher Bell had engine issues during practice and was unable to make a qualifying run so he will start 38th in the 39-car field.
Longtime sports car ace, Joey Hand earned a 17th place qualifying position in the No. 15 Ford. Former Formula One world champion Kimi Räikkönen will roll off from 27th position on the grid in his first NASCAR Cup Series start. Another former F1 driver, Daniel Kvyat will start 36th.
Räikkönen CUP DEBUT
This weekend marks the highly-anticipated NASCAR Cup Series debut for the former Formula One driver Räikkönen, who will be driving the No. 91 Project 91 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing.
The…
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