MARTINSVILLE, Va. — William Byron will lead the Cup Series field to the green flag as he takes on a must-win situation at Martinsville Speedway.
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The Hendrick Motorsports driver won the pole with a lap of 19.286 seconds. This is his third pole win of the season and his first at the Virginia short track.
Ty Gibbs qualified second with a lap of 19.288 seconds. The rest of the top 10 included Kyle Larson (19.315), Joey Logano (19.322), Denny Hamlin (19.347), Cole Custer (19.348), Kyle Busch (19.352), Chase Elliott (19.353), Chase Briscoe (19.376), and Austin Cindric (19.393).
MORE: Full Martinsville starting lineup
Six of the eight playoff drivers qualified inside of the top 10 for this elimination race. Christopher Bell qualified 12th with a lap of 19.401 seconds. Ryan Blaney qualified 31st with a lap of 19.606 seconds.
This qualifying session buried Blaney in the running order. This is nothing new for the 2023 Cup Series champion, which he acknowledged on Saturday afternoon. He qualified 32nd for this season's spring race before finishing 11th.
"I'll be the first to tell you, I suck at qualifying here," Blaney said ahead of qualifying. "I've just never been able to qualify well for whatever reason. It's two very different mindsets - race pace to qualifying pace.
"Lines, just kind of how you approach everything, and I easily get stuck in the race pace line driving mode through practice because that's what I'm thinking about, and then going out and qualifying it's like the complete opposite. It's a complete 180 from what you've just done for the last 70 laps in practice.
"Some guys can carry it over quick. To me, I struggle a little bit more and to kind of flip it onto the qualifying mode here, just because it's so different, but it's something you work on. You try your best. I don't enjoy qualifying 15th or 20th when I come here."
The Cup Series elimination race will take place at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday. NBC and Peacock will provide coverage as six playoff drivers try to join Hamlin and Briscoe in the Championship 4.
