CORONADO, Calif. — Shane van Gisbergen and the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet team topped Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session to earn the pole position for the Anduril 250 at Naval Base Coronado.
The Auckland, New Zealand, native secured his second pole of the season and his sixth overall in NASCAR’s top division by turning in a best lap of 134.788 seconds, at 90.809 mph, around the 3.4-mile circuit.
“Amazing to get the first pole here (at San Diego). Really cool. It’s tough, I’ve said it a couple of times. It’s your first lap of the day and there’s three, four, five corners you’re probably going through for the first time of the day as your qualifying lap starts,” Van Gisbergen said. “And yeah, I made a meal of it, but I guess the rest of the lap was pretty decent and made the time back. I’m sure everyone has the same story that there’s a lot of time left, but it’s cool to make the least mistakes, I guess (laughs).”
Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar drove to his career-best qualifying effort on a road course this afternoon – landing second on the final speed chart to deliver the Bowtie brigade its third front-row sweep of the season.
Team Penske Ford driver Ryan Blaney qualified third, with Front Row Racing Ford teammates Zane Smith and Todd Gilliland fourth and fifth, respectively.
Six Chevrolet drivers will start in the top-10 positions on Sunday.
Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell ended in the sixth and ninth positions, respectively, to give all three Spire Motorsports entries a top-10 qualifying effort. Van Gisbergen’s teammate, Connor Zilisch, was eighth-quickest, with Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill rounding out the top 10.
Ty Gibbs was the fastest Toyota driver in 11th.
Kevin Magnussen, driving Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91 entry, qualified 21st in his first Cup Series attempt.
Seven-time series champion Jimmie Johnson will start 36th.
