Denny Hamlin remains almost untouchable in the NASCAR Cup Series.
The Chesterfield, Virginia-native picked up the pole for Sunday’s The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway, his third pole position of 2026 and the 51st of his NASCAR Cup Series career – tying Ryan Newman for ninth on the all-time list.
Hamlin, driving the No. 11 King’s Hawaiian Shake ‘Em Bites Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing, was the penultimate driver to hit the racetrack in Saturday’s time trial session, laying down a lap time of 51.948 seconds (173.250mph), the only lap to dip into the 51-second bracket.
It’s the fastest qualifying lap for the NASCAR Cup Series at Pocono Raceway since 2019.
“Just the sun, the track heated up so much from the middle of the session to the end there, and we didn’t have the clouds, but we certainly had the grip,” Hamlin told Prime Video after qualifying. “This whole team just did a good job with the adjustments, making it a little better from practice. I didn’t do a very good job executing the lap there in Turn 2, but I thought I hit [Turn] 3 and [Turn] 1 decent. Just good enough.”
The 45-year-old driver will look to do something that hasn’t been done since the year after he was born, 1981, when Darrell Waltrip won three consecutive races after starting from the first position. Hamlin will look to join a list that includes Fred Lorenzen, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, and Darrell Waltrip, who have done exactly that.
Starting in second place will be Kyle Larson, who is looking to get his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro back in Victory Lane for the first time since last May at Kansas Speedway. Hamlin and Larson were the final two drivers to hit the racetrack.
Daniel Suarez continued his strong campaign with Spire Motorsports by qualifying third at Pocono, after holding the top spot on the speed charts for a good portion of the session. The 2.5-mile triangle-shaped racetrack is the site of one of Suarez’s three poles in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) teammates Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe will roll from fourth and fifth.
Chris Buescher will start sixth, with LEGACY MOTOR CLUB teammates Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek starting seventh and eighth. William Byron and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-10.
Austin Hill, driving the No. 33 Chevrolet Camaro, recorded his best-ever qualifying result this afternoon and will start from 14th. Hill has started inside the top-15 now in two of the four races he’s run, taking over for the late Kyle Busch (starting 13th due to the metric in the Coca-Cola 600).
Christopher Bell will start from 22nd-place on Sunday while nursing a broken left wrist. Other notables starting outside the top-10 include Alex Bowman in 12th, Tyler Reddick in 16th, Chase Elliott in 23rd, and Shane Van Gisbergen in 31st.
Carson Hocevar and Bubba Wallace both had substantial issues in Saturday’s qualifying session, both crashing off Turn 2. Hocevar got loose off the Tunnel Turn and smacked the outside wall, and continued, leaving him to start 26th. Bubba Wallace, though, wasn’t as lucky and will start last.
The Great American Getaway 400 will start Sunday, June 14, at 1:00 PM ET (the start time has been moved up two hours due to inclement weather) on Prime Video.
