FORT WORTH, Texas — Kyle Larson will be the pole sitter for the third NASCAR Cup race in a row after a fast lap of 190.369 mph in qualifying Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway.
This is the 250th pole ever for Hendrick Motorsports and the team’s fourth in a row. That stretch started when William Byron, the winner at TMS last year, won from the pole at the Circuit of the Americas road course three weeks ago in Austin, Texas.
It is the 19th career pole for Larson but his first at Texas Motor Speedway, where last year he led 99 laps before getting loose and spinning into the wall with 85 laps left.
“It’s always been a really good racetrack for me,” Larson said. “Last year, I just screwed up on one of the late restarts and spun and crashed, but we had a dominant race car that day. Hopefully we’ll have another race car just like it.”
Ty Gibbs also will start Sunday on the front row after a lap of 190.134 mph. Christopher Bell, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, qualified third, followed by Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott. Byron qualified sixth.
Byron, Larson and Elliott last week gave Hendrick Motorsports a 1-2-3 finish at Martinsville, where the team was celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first victory for NASCAR’s winningest team.
Hendrick has 305 wins. Byron’s win at Texas in September was the 300th.
Jimmie Johnson, who is racing at Texas in NASCAR for the first time since 2020 as a driver-owner in the No. 84 Chevrolet for Legacy Motor Club, got loose and crashed into the outside wall during practice. The team was working to repair the primary car for Sunday’s race.
Johnson did not make a qualifying run and will start 37th. He has raced 35 times at Texas, where he is the all-time leader with seven wins and 1,152 laps led. He finished 28th at Daytona in his only start this season.
