Alex Bowman beats Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to NASCAR Cup pole at Bristol

Alex Bowman earned his seventh career pole and second consecutive at Bristol on Saturday. The Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) driver lapped the half-mile in 14.911s, beating Hyak Motorsports and fellow Chevrolet driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by 0.014s. This is Stenhouse’s first front row start since qualifying second at Auto Club Speedway two years ago.

“Yeah, it feels really good,” said Bowman, who was the tenth driver to make a lap in qualifying. “Honestly, I’m just excited about a tire management race, but definitely want to dedicate this to Jon Edwards (HMS director of racing communications who passed away this week). Huge loss for everybody at HMS and for his family and everybody that was close to him. He was probably my favorite person at HMS. One of the good guys, for sure, and definitely gonna be missed a lot. So just proud of our 48 team and, yeah, excited for a tire management race. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Speaking further on the expected tire wear, Bowman said, “it’s gonna be tricky for sure. I think, knowing where you want your (brake) bias to go and how you’re gonna manage that from the front. It’s probably pretty difficult to manage because you don’t have anybody in front of you. it’s easy to run too hard sometimes. But, yeah, we’ll wait and see.”

During the session, Kyle Busch went for a spin on his second lap while trying to get a little bit more out of the car. Immediately afterwards, Joey Logano spun sideways and hit the wall with the right rear fender. He carried on, but repairs will be needed to his Team Penske Ford.

Several other drivers had nervous moments, but Busch and Logano — both former Bristol winners — were the only ones to lose control.

Behind Bowman and Stenhouse, Kyle Larson qualified third, Denny Hamlin fourth, and Ryan Blaney fifth. Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, AJ Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar, and Justin Haley rounded out the top ten.