NASCAR Cup Series: 2018 Coke Zero Sugar 400 qualifying results – Chase Elliott takes pole

Chase Elliott is set to start the 18th race of the 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season, the Coke Zero Sugar 400, from the pole position.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott earned his first pole position start of the 36-race 2018 NASCAR Cup Series season in the season’s 18th race, the Coke Zero Sugar 400. The 22-year-old now has four career poles in his Cup Series career, and Chevrolet drivers now have four poles so far this season.

Elliott dominated the qualifying session for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida in his #9 Chevrolet. He took the pole position with a top lap time of 46.381 seconds (194.045 miles per hour) around the historic superspeedway.

Second place qualifier Alex Bowman finished nearly one-quarter of a second behind Elliott in his #88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Bowman took the pole position for the season’s first race at Daytona International Speedway, which was the Daytona 500, back in mid-February.

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Following the 1-2 Chevrolet sweep, particularly the 1-2 Hendrick Motorsports sweep, of the starting grid for tomorrow night’s race, the highest qualifying Ford driver was Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski. Keselowski qualified in third place in his #2 Ford. The highest qualifying Toyota driver was Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. Truex Jr. qualified in 13th in his #78 Toyota.

The top 12 starting positions for tomorrow night’s race contain seven Ford drivers and five Chevrolet drivers. The surprise story of the qualifying session was the fact that Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell qualified on the outside of the fourth row in eighth place in his #34 Ford. He had not qualified that high for a Cup Series race since he qualified in a career-high sixth for the October Talladega race back in the 2014 season.

Of the 41 drivers who attempted to qualify for the race, 40 successfully did so. RBR Enterprises’ Timothy Peters posted the 41st fastest speed in qualifying in his #92 Ford. As a result, he will not start tomorrow night’s race.

Here are the full qualifying results for the 2018 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

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The Coke Zero Sugar 400 is scheduled to be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network starting at 7:00 p.m. ET tomorrow, so be sure to tune in at that time.