Coca-Cola 600 starting lineup: Denny Hamlin wins pole, helps Toyota dominate qualifying

Denny Hamlin won the pole for the Coca-Cola 600 on Saturday night, leading the way in a show of force for Toyota and beating out Kurt Busch for the top starting spot in one of NASCAR’s crown jewel races.

Hamlin posted a lap of 29.399 (183.680 MPH) as Toyota swept the first two rows and put five of their cars in the top seven. Kurt Busch, Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch qualified second through fourth, while Bubba Wallace was right behind in seventh.

Toyota’s path to the pole was greatly aided by issues for the fastest car in practice. Although Kyle Larson ended up posting the fastest time in practice, he hit the wall later in the session and did not make a qualifying attempt as his team fixed the damage. Corey LaJoie, Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski also had incidents, while Kaz Grala had the hood come up on his car as he went out for his practice run.

Two teams had issues in pre-qualifying tech inspection, with Justin Haley and Kaz Grala’s teams both failing twice. As a result, both lost pit selection for Sunday evening’s race and also had a crew member ejected from the race weekend.

Coca-Cola 600 starting lineup

1. #11 – Denny Hamlin
2. #45 – Kurt Busch
3. #20 – Christopher Bell
4. #18 – Kyle Busch
5. #24 – William Byron
6. #2 – Austin Cindric (R)
7. #23 – Bubba Wallace
8. #8 – Tyler Reddick
9. #48 – Alex Bowman
10. #34 – Michael McDowell
11. #12 – Ryan Blaney
12. #99 – Daniel Suarez
13. #9 – Chase Elliott
14. #19 – Martin Truex Jr.
15. #14 – Chase Briscoe
16. #3 – Austin Dillon
17. #21 – Harrison Burton (R)
18. #4 – Kevin Harvick
19. #17 – Chris Buescher
20. #31 – Justin Haley
21. #41 – Cole Custer
22. #1 – Ross Chastain
23. #22 – Joey Logano
24. #10 – Aric Almirola
25. #43 – Erik Jones
26. #15 – Ryan Preece
27. #16 – Noah Gragson
28. #42 – Ty Dillon
29. #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
30. #38 – Todd Gilliland (R)
31. #78 – B.J. McLeod
32. #77 – Josh Bilicki
33. #51 – Cody Ware
34. #50 – Kaz Grala
35. #6 – Brad Keselowski
36. #5 – Kyle Larson
37. #7 – Corey LaJoie