Blaney Steals Bristol Pole From Reddick in Tight Qualifying Session

Ryan Blaney will lead the field to green at Bristol Motor Speedway after delivering a blistering qualifying lap that eclipsed the entire Toyota contingent that had dominated the session.

The Team Penske driver toured the half-mile in 15.101 seconds on Saturday, snagging pole position ahead of championship leader Tyler Reddick by a margin of over two hundredths of a second. It marked Blaney’s 13th career NASCAR Cup pole and his second at Bristol, with the first coming in 2023.

“Just kind of got free on Lap 1, and then it was like all right, gather yourself up in Turns 3 and 4 and try and get a second lap,” Blaney said. “Luckily, the rear tires came in better the second lap in Turns 1 and 2, and then Turns 3 and 4 I thought was a really good corner. A really great job by the whole 12 boys.”

The No. 12 Ford had shown promise throughout practice, and Blaney credited the team’s adjustments between practice and qualifying for the strong showing. “Our race car in practice was pretty good, and it was nice that we made some pretty good adjustments in qualifying with the pace being up,” he added. “Cool start to the weekend, now we got to do it for 500 laps, which should be fun.”

The front row will feature two very different stories heading into Sunday’s race. Reddick, piloting the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, qualified second and remains the man to beat in the championship standings. Behind them, Chase Briscoe put in a strong third-place effort in his Toyota, while Riley Herbst equaled his career-best starting spot with a fourth-place run — his best Cup qualifying effort to date.

Ty Gibbs rounded out the top five in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Ross Chastain was the fastest Chevrolet in sixth, followed by Chris Buescher, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, and Carson Hocevar in a Ford-dominated remainder of the top ten.

Not everything was smooth for the Hendrick Motorsports camp. Alex Bowman, making his return after a five-week absence due to vertigo, managed only 27th on the grid. His teammate William Byron had an even tougher afternoon, qualifying 34th — a startling result for the driver who entered the weekend as one of the faster cars on paper.

There was further drama off the track as five teams lost their pit stall selection and had a team member ejected following pre-race inspection issues, adding an extra layer of complexity to their race-day strategies.

With just a single tenth of a second separating the fastest ten qualifiers, Sunday’s 500-lap race at Bristol promises to be an absolute battle from start to finish.