Denny Hamlin earned Toyota a milestone 150th pole position in the NASCAR Cup Series after topping Saturday’s session at Phoenix Raceway.
Hamlin outpaced teammate Ty Gibbs by a margin of 0.088 seconds to bank his 41st career pole.
“Most practices over the last two or three years, we’ve been three-tenths off in practice and we end up racing between fifth and 10th, so for yesterday to only be a tenth off, it shows me that we shouldn’t be a fifth-to-10th place car tomorrow — we should be better than that,” Hamlin said.
Behind the front two, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott and Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones make up the second row for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500.
Defending spring Phoenix winner William Byron qualified fifth while last week’s runner-up at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Tyler Reddick, placed sixth in the session.
A trio of Ford’s made up positions seven through nine with Stewart-Haas Racing’s Noah Gragson, teammate Chase Briscoe and Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell.
Gragson will be looking for a second straight top-10 result after finishing sixth last Sunday at Las Vegas.
“These guys at Stewart-Haas have been getting better and making progress all weekend from where we unloaded,” Gragson said after qualifying. “I was a bit concerned with our pace on the short run and being able to fire off a fast lap time but it seemed like the long run was really good. I am happy with it. We did a package change to end practice and our second package was a lot better and that is what we ran for qualifying. I feel really comfortable on entry and I feel like I can go wherever in the center and it is really good on exit with throttle.
“I am proud of everyone on the team and just want to continue — I know I have been saying it a lot but I want to continue to improve and be better than we were last week. It takes time to develop the camaraderie with the team and get the atmosphere where we want it and the communication. I don’t know if it has been expedited and we still have a long way to go but it has been a lot of fun working with this group.”
Rookie Carson Hocevar of Spire Motorsports rounded out the top-10 qualifiers.