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Ty Gibbs won his first career pole Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He parlayed that starting spot into a sixth-place finish.
The series now heads to a handful of tracks — Gateway, Sonoma, Iowa and New Hampshire — where passing could be tough and starting position could be even more of a premium than what it normally is.
So here are this week’s rankings (based on general performance this season with recent races given more weight) with a look at how good qualifiers these drivers are (hint: most are pretty good because qualifying equals speed and often equals fewer instances of getting caught up in an accident):
1. Denny Hamlin (Last Week: 2)
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Hamlin has 41 career poles, including one this season at Phoenix. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has seven top-10 starts this year and an average starting spot of 10.9. There are several drivers who have better average starting positions, but it’s stout enough for Hamlin to win from.
2. William Byron (LW: 4)
Byron has the same number of poles (13) as he does career wins. One of those this year was the same — the Hendrick Motorsports driver captured the pole at Circuit of the Americas and won the race. He has eight top-10 starts this year and an average starting position of 10.2 this year.
3. Kyle Larson (LW: 1)
Larson has 19 career poles, including three this year (back-to-back-to-back at Richmond, Martinsville and Texas). The Hendrick Motorsports driver has qualified in the top 10 eight times this year and has an average starting position of 10.6. As long as Larson qualifies in the top-10, he probably feels he has a good shot at winning.
4. Chase Elliott (LW: 5)
Elliott has 12 poles in his career but hasn’t won a pole in his last 54 starts. The Hendrick driver does qualify well — he has nine top-10 starting spots this year — but has four starts worse than 20th. His average starting spot is 12.4 this year.
5. Tyler Reddick (LW: 7)
Reddick won the pole a few weeks ago at Darlington, the seventh pole of his career (he has six career victories). The 23XI Racing driver has seven top-10 starting spots this year and an average starting spot of 11.4.
6. Ty Gibbs (LW: 9)
As mentioned, Gibbs earned his first career pole in his 65th career Cup start last weekend at Charlotte. He has eight top-10 starts this year and his average starting spot of 10.1 is best in the series.
7. Brad Keselowski (LW: 8)
Keselowski has 18 career poles and 36 career wins. He hasn’t had a pole in his last 56 starts. He only has one top-10 start this year, and the RFK Racing driver/co-owner has admittedly said they need to qualify better — his average starting position is 21.6 (with an average finish of 14.2).
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8. Christopher Bell (LW: NR)
Bell has 11 career poles (including one this year at Kansas) with eight career wins. He has started in the top-10 seven times this year and the JGR driver is averaging a starting spot of 12.6.
9. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 6)
Truex does have 23 career poles (to go with 34 career wins). He has eight top-10 starts this year and an average starting spot of 10.2, ranking him second behind Gibbs as far as JGR drivers.
10. Chris Buescher (LW: 3)
Buescher only has one career pole — May 2022 at Dover. And he has just four top-10 starts this year. Needless to say, he’s finishing better than he’s starting and his average starting spot is 17.6 (which still is four spots better than his teammate/boss Keselowski).
On the verge: Josh Berry, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain, Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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