Michael McDowell spoiled the opening qualifying session of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs after notching the top spot for Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
McDowell also scored the pole at Atlanta in the spring. He’s tallied five poles on the season.
“I think coming in to this weekend we sat on the pole in the spring race early in the season and felt that pressure to come back here and have another shot at it, so we executed our plan well today,” McDowell said. “As far as what it gives you as an indication for tomorrow, I don’t think it’s a huge indicator of anything other than we have the same speed we did here last time.
“The good thing for us was in the race our car raced really well and sometimes you trim them out and you get a lot of speed and you’ll get into the race and it’ll just be a handful, but we led a lot of laps, had a really fast car. I thought we had one of the better driving cars, so I don’t feel like we’re compromising anything going into the race with the speed that we have, and it was the same a couple weeks ago in Daytona.
“I felt like we had one of the fastest cars there, so it’s just about executing and being there at the end and giving yourself a shot at trying to win the race.”
The Front Row Motorsports driver edged Ford teammate and defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney by 0.073 seconds. McDowell’s FRM teammate Todd Gilliland qualified third. It was a Ford lockout of the top-five positions with Josh Berry and Austin Cindric following suit.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson was the first non-Ford driver in sixth, with two-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano qualifying seventh.
A pair of Chevrolets in Austin Dillon (eighth) and William Byron (ninth) followed, while last week’s winner at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Chase Briscoe, completed the top 10.
Playoff drivers that qualified outside the top 10 included: Alex Bowman (11th), Harrison Burton (12th), Chase Elliott (16th), Brad Keselowski (19th), Ty Gibbs (20th), Martin Truex Jr. (22nd), Christopher Bell (26th), Daniel Suarez (30th)and Denny Hamlin (38th).
Hamlin endured a powertrain issue during the session.