Shane van Gisbergen secured the pole position for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International, marking his first pole at the Glen and fifth at the Cup level. The 37-year-old Kiwi celebrated his birthday with an impressive qualifying run, clocking 1:11.165s to edge out Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell by 0.259 seconds.
Van Gisbergen’s Trackhouse Racing teammates also shone, with Ross Chastain and Connor Zilisch qualifying fourth and fifth respectively, placing all three Trackhouse cars inside the top five. “The guys did a good job tuning it for what I needed for the one lap,” Van Gisbergen said. “It was really good, but all Trackhouse cars in the top five as well. We got some good cars here this weekend.”
Austin Cindric of Team Penske qualified third, while Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top ten. The 35-minute qualifying session started slowly, with only 15 cars posting times midway through. Van Gisbergen made his decisive run with less than ten minutes remaining, gaining significant time in the bus stop section. The gap between first and second was larger than the gap between second and 14th, highlighting the dominance of his flying lap.
Notably, the top Hendrick Motorsports driver was William Byron in 13th, with Kyle Larson 23rd, Chase Elliott 27th, and Alex Bowman 28th. Tyler Reddick, winner of the recent road course at COTA, could only manage 15th. Katherine Legge, whose car chief was ejected after two inspection failures, qualified last, 5.3 seconds off the pace.
The full starting lineup for the NASCAR Cup race at Watkins Glen is as follows:
1. Shane van Gisbergen (Chevrolet) – 1’11.165
2. Michael McDowell (Chevrolet) – 1’11.424
3. Austin Cindric (Ford) – 1’11.445
4. Ross Chastain (Chevrolet) – 1’11.449
5. Connor Zilisch (Chevrolet) – 1’11.483
6. Joey Logano (Ford) – 1’11.522
7. Ryan Blaney (Ford) – 1’11.523
8. Christopher Bell (Toyota) – 1’11.582
9. Chase Briscoe (Toyota) – 1’11.583
10. Ty Gibbs (Toyota) – 1’11.615
11. Carson Hocevar (Chevrolet) – 1’11.620
12. AJ Allmendinger (Chevrolet) – 1’11.654
13. William Byron (Chevrolet) – 1’11.664
14. Chris Buescher (Ford) – 1’11.668
15. Tyler Reddick (Toyota) – 1’11.699
16. Daniel Suarez (Chevrolet) – 1’11.723
17. John Hunter Nemechek (Toyota) – 1’11.739
18. Bubba Wallace (Toyota) – 1’11.755
19. Cole Custer (Chevrolet) – 1’11.847
20. Denny Hamlin (Toyota) – 1’11.854
21. Kyle Busch (Chevrolet) – 1’11.890
22. Todd Gilliland (Ford) – 1’11.941
23. Kyle Larson (Chevrolet) – 1’11.961
24. Erik Jones (Toyota) – 1’11.972
25. Austin Dillon (Chevrolet) – 1’11.999
