NASCAR: 2024 Bristol qualifying updates, full starting lineup

The NASCAR Cup Series is set for its fifth stop of the 2024 season this Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway, where the Food City 500 is set to be contested on the track's concrete surface for the first time since 2020.

Sunday's race is the first of two on this year's schedule at the "Last Great Colosseum", and it is scheduled to be a 500-lap race around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol, Tennessee oval.

Because Bristol Motor Speedway is not a superspeedway, group qualifying is set to be used to determine the starting order. Because it is a short track, the single-car qualifying session is set to be contested with each driver getting two timed laps instead of just one.

The qualifying groups were determined by the results of the most recent race at Phoenix Raceway last Sunday afternoon, and the qualifying order was determined by a three-variable metric (full explanation here) that NASCAR introduced in 2020 amid the ongoing absence of qualifying.

The fastest five drivers in each group then advance to the shootout for the pole position.

Make note of one small change to qualifying for 2024: instead of the rest of the lineup being determined by the lap times of everybody else combined, those who don't make it into the top five in the first group are set to line up on the outside row, and those who don't make it into the top five from the second group are set to line up on the inside row.

NASCAR at Bristol: Full starting lineup

1st - Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Team Penske Ford
2nd - Josh Berry, No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
3rd - Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
4th - Joey Logano, No. 22 Team Penske Ford
5th - Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
6th - Chase Briscoe, No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
7th - Michael McDowell, No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford
8th - William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
9th - Bubba Wallace, No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota
10th - Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
11th - Martin Truex Jr., No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
12th - Christopher Bell, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
13th - Harrison Burton, No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford
14th - Kyle Busch, No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
15th - Erik Jones, No. 43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota
16th - Zane Smith, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
17th - Brad Keselowski, No. 6 RFK Racing Ford
18th - Corey LaJoie, No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
19th - Ty Gibbs, No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
20th - Daniel Hemric, No. 31 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet
21st - Austin Cindric, No. 2 Team Penske Ford
22nd - Noah Gragson, No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
23rd - Tyler Reddick, No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota
24th - Todd Gilliland, No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford
25th - Ryan Preece, No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford
26th - John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota
27th - Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet
28th - Daniel Suarez, No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Team Chevrolet
29th - Alex Bowman, No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
30th - A.J. Allmendinger, No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet
31st - Austin Dillon, No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet
32nd - Justin Haley, No. 51 Rick Ware Racing Ford
33rd - Kaz Grala, No. 15 Rick Ware Racing Ford
34th - Chris Buescher, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford
35th - Carson Hocevar, No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet
36th - Ross Chastain, No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Team Chevrolet

Bristol Motor Speedway is scheduled to host the Food City 500 beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET this Sunday, March 17. Fox is set to provide live coverage. If you have not yet started a free trial of FuboTV, do so now!