NASCAR: 2021 Nashville qualifying – Full starting lineup
By Asher Fair
The starting lineup for the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway is set after just the fourth NASCAR qualifying session of the 2021 season.
The fourth qualifying session of the NASCAR Cup Series season took place this morning at Nashville Superspeedway for this afternoon’s Ally 400, and it was Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola who took a surprising pole position, the fourth of his career.
Almirola has had an extremely tough season so far and sits in 28th place in the driver standings through 16 races, but he took the pole position for the inaugural 300-lap Cup Series race around the four-turn, 1.333-mile (2.145-kilometer) oval in Lebanon, Tennessee by recording a top lap speed of 161.992 miles per hour (29.557 seconds) behind the wheel of his #10 Ford.
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He beat Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch to the pole position by just 0.082 miles per hour (0.015 seconds), as Busch qualified in second place and is set to start alongside Almirola on the front row after recording a lap speed of 161.910 miles per hour (29.572 seconds) behind the wheel of his #18 Toyota.
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Team Penske’s Joey Logano qualified in third place behind the wheel of his #22 Ford and is set to start alongside the top Hendrick Motorsports driver, William Byron, on the second row in fourth behind the wheel of his #24 Chevrolet.
Despite not placing a car inside the top three, Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet still took four of the top eight positions. Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott are set to share the third row in fifth and sixth place behind the wheels of their #5 Chevrolet and #9 Chevrolet, respectively. Alex Bowman is set to start in eighth behind the wheel of his #48 Chevrolet.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s strength in today’s qualifying session was not limited to Almirola, as Cole Custer qualified in an impressive seventh place behind the wheel of his #41 Ford. He has also had a tough start to the 2021 season, as he sits just one spot ahead of Almirola in 27th in the standings.
Here is the full starting lineup for the 2021 Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.
Starting Lineup
1st – Aric Almirola
2nd – Kyle Busch
3rd – Joey Logano
4th – William Byron
5th – Kyle Larson
6th – Chase Elliott
7th – Cole Custer
8th – Alex Bowman
9th – Erik Jones
10th – Ryan Blaney
11th – Matt DiBenedetto
12th – Kevin Harvick
13th – Denny Hamlin
14th – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
15th – Brad Keselowski
16th – Chase Briscoe
17th – Chris Buescher
18th – Anthony Alfredo
19th – Ross Chastain
20th – Ryan Preece
21st – Bubba Wallace
22nd – Daniel Suarez
23rd – Michael McDowell
24th – Corey LaJoie
25th – Christopher Bell
26th – Tyler Reddick
27th – Justin Haley
28th – Austin Dillon
29th – Ryan Newman
30th – Kurt Busch
31st – B.J. McLeod
32nd – J.J. Yeley
33rd – Chad Finchum
34th – Josh Bilicki
35th – Martin Truex Jr.
36th – Garrett Smithley
37th – Joey Gase
38th – David Starr
39th – Quin Houff
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Tune in to NBC Sports Network at 3:30 p.m. ET this afternoon for the live broadcast of the Ally 400 from Nashville Superspeedway.