NASCAR lineup at Las Vegas: Starting order, pole for Pennzoil 400 based on qualifying results

Tom Gatto

NASCAR lineup at Las Vegas: Starting order, pole for Pennzoil 400 based on qualifying results image

The starting lineup for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Pennzoil 400 (3:49 p.m. ET green flag; Fox, TSN1, PRN) was determined via qualifying Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Ten drivers competed for the pole position with single-car, single-lap runs around Las Vegas's 1.5-mile oval. The field was split into two groups for qualifying after practice, and the five fastest cars in each group in the first round advanced to the second round.

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On-track qualifying is scheduled for all races this season. It was stopped early in the 2020 season and limited to eight races in the 2021 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. NASCAR scaled back qualifying to help reduce the amount of time teams spent at the track.

Who won the pole for the NASCAR race at Las Vegas?

Christopher Bell earned his first career pole in Saturday's qualifying. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was the fifth of 10 drivers to make runs in the second and final round.

His 182.673 mph average speed on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval was more than six-tenths of a second faster than runner-up Kyle Larson (182.014).

Larson will be looking to go back-to-back in the Vegas spring race. He won at the track last March, his first of a series-high 10 wins during his Cup Series championship season.

Starting lineup for Las Vegas race

Thirty-seven Cup Series teams were entered for Sunday's race: all 36 charter teams and the open NY Racing Team with Greg Biffle as its driver.

Kyle Busch will begin at the rear of the field in a backup car after crashing in practice Saturday. The left rear tire on Busch's No. 18 car went flat, causing the car to spin into the outside wall.

Starting pos.DriverCar No.Team
1Christopher Bell20Joe Gibbs Racing
2Kyle Larson5Hendrick Motorsports
3Austin Cindric2Team Penske
4Chase Briscoe14Stewart-Haas Racing
5Chase Elliott9Hendrick Motorsports
6Joey Logano22Team Penske
7Tyler Reddick8Richard Childress Racing
8Denny Hamlin11Joe Gibbs Racing
9Ricky Stenhouse Jr.47JTG Daugherty Racing
10Austin Dillon3Richard Childress Racing
11Ryan Blaney12Team Penske
12Martin Truex Jr.19Joe Gibbs Racing
13Alex Bowman48Hendrick Motorsports
14William Byron24Hendrick Motorsports
15Brad Keselowski6RFK Racing
16Daniel Hemric16Kaulig Racing
17Bubba Wallace2323XI Racing
18Ross Chastain1Trackhouse Racing
19Harrison Burton21Wood Brothers Racing
20Aric Almirola10Stewart-Haas Racing
21Daniel Suarez99Trackhouse Racing
22Michael McDowell34Front Row Motorsports
23Erik Jones43Petty GMS Motorsports
24Cole Custer41Stewart-Haas Racing
25Kevin Harvick4Stewart-Haas Racing
26Greg Biffle44NY Racing Team
27Chris Buescher17RFK Racing
28Justin Haley31Kaulig Racing
29Corey LaJoie7Spire Motorsports
30Todd Gilliland38Front Row Motorsports
31Kurt Busch4523XI Racing
32Ty Dillon42Petty GMS Motorsports
33Cody Ware51Rick Ware Racing
34Josh Bilicki77Spire Motorsports
35BJ McLeod78Live Fast Motorsports
36Garrett Smithley15Rick Ware Racing
37Kyle Busch18Joe Gibbs Racing

Tom Gatto

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.