Byron tops Bell and Elliott for Cup pole at Homestead

Byron, the next-to-last driver to go out in the final round of qualifying Saturday, posted an average lap speed of 166.389 mph to win the pole for Sunday’s playoff race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The pole is the first for Byron this year and comes at a track in which he won last season. With two races remaining in the semifinal round of the playoffs, Byron is the first driver in points below the cutline to transfer to the Championship 4.

“It’s super-cool,” said Byron, who now has eight career poles. “The guys have done a good job in qualifying trim the last few weeks and just kind of building on it. It was definitely a struggle in the summertime for us to qualify well and we wanted to work on that.

“The (car) was good enough there in the final round. I thought we were pretty loose but I was able to get some good exits (off turns) and I was happy with that. We’ve won poles in the past and I wanted to try to keep that streak going.

“It’s been kind of the running joke with us. It’s good to get one this year and kind of get the monkey off our back in that sense.”

Byron just edged two other playoff drivers for the top spot. Christopher Bell ended up second (166.139 mph) and Byron’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Chase Elliott, was third (166.133 mph).

Rounding out the top-five were John Hunter Nemechek – who is substituting this weekend for Bubba Wallace – and Kyle Larson. Wallace was suspended for one race by NASCAR of intentionally wrecking Larson in last weekend’s race at Las Vegas.

Completing the top-10 starting lineup are Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Chris Buescher, Brad Keselowski and A.J. Allmendinger.

Round 1 / Group B

Going out late in the session, Larson posted the fastest average lap speed at 168.434 mph, which was the fastest lap turned so far in the day.

Byron ended up second-fastest (167.400 mph) and Gibbs was third (167.229 mph).

Also advancing to the final round of qualifying were Buescher and Allmendinger.

Among those who failed to move on to Round 2 were Kyle Busch and playoff drivers Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.

Round 1 / Group A

Nemechek, who was fastest in Saturday’s practice, maintained his speed in first-round qualifying with the fastest average lap speed of 167.426 mph.

Bell was second-fastest (167.100 mph) and Reddick was third (166.904 mph).

Also advancing to Round 2 from Group A were Keselowski and Elliott.

Among those who failed to advance were Daniel Suarez and playoff drivers Ross Chastain and Chase Briscoe.