Chase Briscoe earns pole for Coca-Cola 600, beating Kyle Larson

Driving the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Chase Briscoe has collected yet another pole position in a NASCAR crown jewel event. He already earned pole for the season-opening Daytona 500, and now he’ll lead the field of 40 for the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday.

“I haven’t seen it yet, (but) I felt okay kind of everywhere,” Briscoe told NASCAR on Prime. “I felt like it wasn’t the most perfect lap by any means, but it was good enough. Just super excited to get the results on Saturday. I feel like we deserve it with Bass Pro Shops Toyota. This is obviously a great opportunity to lead the field to the green for 600 miles … Looking forward tomorrow and seeing if we can keep it up there.”

Briscoe is just the tenth driver to earn pole position for both the 600 and the Daytona 500 in the same year, saying of the achievement: “It’s pretty wild to be honest, just thinking back – I never thought I would get to run a single Truck race, not only to be able to now lead the field to two crown jewel events. It is pretty special. Daytona was really, really neat. I don’t know if I quite savored the moment as much, because it was absolute chaos on that Sunday, but tomorrow will be really, really special, just being able to take it all on it a little bit more, just knowing what to expect. I’m excited.

“This is a race I’ve watched ever since I was a little kid, and to be able to start on the front row and lead the field to green is cool. Honestly, for me, being such an Indy 500 diehard, it’s pretty neat that the guy that I’m starting beside is racing the Indy 500 on Sunday. It is definitely a cool day for sure.”

Larson near the front

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images

Kyle Larson will join Briscoe on the front row, missing out on pole position by just 0.020s. Larson will be attempting the rare ‘Double’ on Sunday, starting 19th in the Indy 500 before he heads to Charlotte to try and complete 1,100 miles of racing in a single day.

William Byron will start third, Chris Buescher fourth, and A.J. Allmendinger fifth. John Hunter Nemechek, Ty Gibbs, Noah Gragson, Alex Bowman, and Christopher Bell filled out the remainder of top ten.

Making his 700th career start, NASCAR legend and four-time Coke 600 winner Jimmie Johnson will start 17th.

In the session, Carson Hocevar spun exiting Turn 4, putting him at the back of the field for the race. He had shown speed in practice, posting the fastest single-lap speed. Tyler Reddick also had a brush with the wall on his qualifying lap. 

Ross Chastain, who crashed in practice after cutting a left-rear tire, did not make an attempt and will start 40th (last) on the grid.