By AMANDA VINCENT
Kyle Larson led a Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet domination of round two of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Richmond (Va.) Raceway on Saturday. In the second of two rounds of qualifying, Larson claimed the pole for Sunday night’s Toyota Owners 400 with a 22.438-second/ 120.332 mph lap.
“Well, it helps the confidence, for sure,” Larson said. “So, yeah, I mean, practice went well, and qualifying went good. I’m not expecting to win, but I think we have a No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevy capable of contending. We have a pit stall to go along with it now, which helps. Just need to execute a good race and see where the results end up.”
HMS swept the front row of the starting grid as Larson’s teammate Chase Elliott claimed the second starting position with a round-two lap that was just 0.002 seconds slower than Larson’s.
Chevrolet claimed the top-four positions on the race starting grid. Ross Chastain qualified third, and a third Hendrick driver, Alex Bowman, qualified fourth.
Elliott was fastest among the second group of drivers to make qualifying attempts in round one with a 22.114-second/122.095 mph lap. It was the only lap among second-group qualifiers in round one to surpass the 122 mph mark.
The other top-four starters were in the first group in round one of qualifying. That group was led in the opening round by Joey Logano and his 22.333-second/120.897 mph lap. Logano wound up last in round two among the 10 advancers from round one (five from each group), so he’ll start 10th in Sunday’s race.
Larson was fastest, overall, in the practice session that preceded qualifying. Chastain, meanwhile, was slowest of 36 cars in practice before rebounding in qualifying.
Other drivers advancing from round one in qualifying to claim top-10 race starting positions in round two include Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. in fifth, Todd Gilliland in sixth, Martin Truex Jr. seventh, Ty Gibbs eighth and Austin Cindric in ninth.
