Denny Hamlin earned pole place for the NASCAR Cup race at Chicagoland Speedway, securing his 52nd profession pole and his fourth of the 2026 season.
It was a nail-bitter for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, with Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports practically matching Hamlin on his personal qualifying lap. He’ll begin on the skin of the entrance row, simply 0.001s slower than Hamlin.
The RFK Racing duo of Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski will begin third and fourth, respectively. It is then a trio of JGR drivers with Ty Gibbs fifth, Christopher Bell sixth, and Chase Briscoe seventh.
Bubba Wallace, Chase Elliott, and William Byron stuffed out the rest of the highest ten.
“I gotta be sincere with you, I bought extraordinarily fortunate,” mentioned Hamlin, who remarked that his aim was P12 resulting from his early run within the order. “Anybody that goes out proper now beats me. We bought fortunate these final 12 guys simply bought caught within the solar. The observe could be very temperature delicate. It will get just a little little bit of solar on it and it slows method up. I feel we bought actually lucky there with the timing of that, and we hit our lap fairly respectable contemplating after we went out.”
Hamlin enters this race as the brand new championship chief, one level forward of Tyler Reddick within the common season standings. Reddick will begin thirteenth on Sunday.
Qualifying recap
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With storms approaching, qualifying bought underway with J.J. Yeley as the primary driver out on observe. Michael McDowell didn’t participate after three inspection failures, which additionally means he must serve a pass-through through the race.
Herbst led the best way in Friday observe, and he set the early benchmark in qualifying at 30.576s. He remained P1 till 23XI Racing teammate Reddick toppled him with s 30.523s lap.
Cody Ware bought into the wall on the exit of Flip 2, and needed to abandon his lap with out placing up a time.
It was a Toyota get together on the entrance, and Reddick held the lead till yet one more 23XI driver went to the highest with Wallace operating a 30.420s. Nevertheless, it didn’t final lengthy as his boss went out subsequent and bested him. Hamlin a 30.296s, and it was going to be powerful for anybody to beat that lap.
Because the session progressed, it was RFK Racing that had an actual run at Hamlin. Keselowski bought inside three tenths, and Buescher was simply 0.015s away from having the quickest lap.
Because the observe cooled down with elevated cloud cowl from inclement climate approaching, speeds picked up. A number of drivers had a shot at pole, and Larson was throughout Hamlin, however ended up lacking Hamlin’s pole lap by 0.001s as they practically tied.
2026 NASCAR Cup Chicagoland Beginning Lineup
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