
Chase Briscoe and Austin Cindric locked down the front row of the Daytona 500 as the fastest two drivers on Wednesday night in qualifying.
Briscoe earned the pole – his second at Daytona International Speedway, but first in the Daytona 500 – with a lap of 182.745 mph (49.249 seconds). It is Briscoe’s third career pole in the NASCAR Cup Series, and comes in his first points race with Joe Gibbs Racing driving the No. 19 Toyota.
It is the first pole in the Daytona 500 for Toyota.
“A great way to start our season,” Briscoe said. “Unbelievable way to start off the year. Unbelievable way to start off with Toyota. To be able to be the guy to deliver them the first anything when they’ve already accomplished so much is pretty cool. Man, to think I’m going to start on the pole of the great American race with ultimately the great American brand of Bass Pro Shops is unbelievable.
“I can’t thank Coach Gibbs enough, the entire Joe Gibbs Racing organization. The whole off-season, everybody kept telling me the focus was trying to qualify better at superspeedways. That’s something I really struggled at last year. For our 19 group to come here and sit on the pole at the biggest race of the year is pretty special. I can’t believe it; super appreciative of this opportunity with Bass Pro, Toyota, Joe Gibbs. Unbelievable way to start our season. Hopefully, we can carry it on now.”
Cindric qualified second. The Team Penske driver put down a lap of 182.463 mph in his Ford Mustang.
Wednesday determined the front row for the 67th annual Daytona 500. The session was two rounds of single-car qualifying with the fastest 10 drivers advancing to the second round to compete for the front row.