Hamlin sets record to win pole in Bristol

Denny Hamlin

Getty Images for NASCAR

Denny Hamlin won the Coors Light Pole Qualifying Award in the first qualifying session since NASCAR tweaked the rules for the new group format. Hamlin soared to the top of the leaderboard in the final 10-minute session with a speed of 129.991 mph, a new track record, for his first pole award of the season.

Changes to qualifying included drivers being able to hook cars up to cooling units, and cool-down laps on the track apron were no longer permitted.

Hamlin also won the pole at Bristol for last year's fall race.

The previous track record holder was Kyle Busch, who qualified at a speed of 129.535 mph set last March. Busch qualified seventh on Friday.

Lining up second for Sunday's race is Brad Keselowski, who recorded a speed of 129.965 mph. It's the third consecutive week Keselowski will start on the front row.

Matt Kenseth, Joey Logano and Marcos Ambrose completed the top five in the final 10-minute qualifying session.

Penske Racing had both its drivers in the final 12-driver round; JGR had all three.

Kenseth's late run in the first round bested Kurt Busch for 12th place and secured the last spot in the final round. Dale Earnhardt Jr. attempted to try and crack the top 12 with the last run of the day, but finished 14th in the opening 30-minute session.

David Reutimann and Dave Blaney did not qualify for the race.

The Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway is scheduled to take place Sunday at 1 p.m. (FOX).

Denny Hamlin Quotes

How did a lap of 14.76 seconds feel around Bristol — a new track record?
“It’s fast — it’s faster than I ever imagined going around this track. Every new rule change we have just makes these cars go a little bit faster. Darian (Grubb, crew chief) just made an excellent call with our adjustments and the team stepped up. We were pretty strategic in how we executed that qualifying session and (Brad) Keselowski obviously had some laps on his tires put one down there. We thought that it was going to be one and done for us — we felt like one good effort in that final round, but luckily we didn’t have to go back out there. I’m not sure we would have even made it in on time. Our FedEx Freight Toyota Camry — I was way more excited about it in race trim than I was qualifying. Our car was super consistent, didn’t fall off — it’s everything that you need to win a race here."

How important is it to get a pole this season?
“It obviously gives you a great start to the weekend for obvious reasons — it’s been documented and every pole winner says that the number one pit stall and all the good stuff that comes with it. Ultimately, our job is to get our car better for race trim tomorrow and I was really pleased with it today in race trim. The qualifying stuff kind of caught us a little off guard. We didn’t make but one mock run at the very end of practice because we were working on race stuff so much. Obviously this is a great start to the weekend at a track where we believe it’s a great opportunity for us to get a win and put ourselves in a Chase spot."

Is it the tires or the new rules on the cars making them so much faster at Bristol?
“A little bit is the tire, a lot of it is the car. It just kind of depends on where NASCAR wants to go with these cars in the future. If they want to continue to make them faster and faster or are they going to make wholesale changes like we’ve talked about or we’ve heard about where they slow them up a lot in the years coming up. It’s always good to set a track record. I remember watching (Ryan) Newman get in the 14’s for the first time back in the day and I couldn’t believe watching a lap with my eyes on TV how fast it looked. Then obviously now we’re setting the bar and we’re going to continue to break track records everywhere we go being that we keep adding downforce to the cars and with this no ride height rule it opens up some things for the teams to do to make the cars faster. It’s going to continue to keep falling as long as the rules allow us to push our cars to keep going faster."

Does this qualifying effort by Joe Gibbs Racing help and how are things with intermediate tracks?
“The intermediate stuff — it will come. This obviously doesn’t fix anything from last week — this is a totally different beast and a half-mile track, first one of the year. Short tracks — we can make up a little bit here and there being that mechanical grip is the biggest factor. It’s not about big engines and things like that although you have to have all those things to be fast you still kind of rest on your normal ideas when you come to short tracks. We’ll get the other stuff figured out. We had a great debrief last week I feel like on Vegas. That’s all it takes is you continue to communicate and I didn’t like last year how fast our team started out the year. When you set out honestly like what Penske has done early this year and the 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) truthfully, it makes the competition really, really scratch their heads and start finding where we need to be. I’m okay with easing into the year and we’ve done that with our 11 car a lot throughout my career. Kind of figuring out where we need to be and finding that in the summer months not necessarily right now."

Is Joe Gibbs Racing on what Penske has figured out in these qualifying sessions?
“Honestly, I don’t think that Penske really had things figured out as far as the strategy for the sessions — I think their cars were just so fast that they were able to do what we did this weekend. They went out there and they never had to make a second run in any session as far as to advance to the next session. They always had the freshest tires, the coolest car because they would make their run really early in every session and we would too, but we would just be too slow and wouldn’t make the cut so we’d have to make another run, the car gets hotter, the tires get older and if we did make it then we enter the next session with a hotter car, older tires and we don’t stand a chance. I really think that their cars just have so much speed right now that they can pretty much do anything they want. The 2 (Brad Keselowski) right there had a total of like six laps on his tires and still ran right about the same thing that we did. They’ve got a lot of speed and when you have a car that has speed then you have the confidence to go out there at any time you want and know that this lap is going to put you in the next session."

Results