Ryan Blaney wins Watkins Glen pole, full Cup Series qualifying results

Chase Briscoe had another great qualifying session. He is P3 for tomorrow. Ross Chastain and Kyle Busch round out the top-five with Michael McDowell, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Christopher Bell, and William Byron behind them.

Chase Elliott P20, Tyler Reddick P21, Connor Zilisch P25, Kyle Larson P28 – these are the drivers to watch as far as who could be the hard charger on Sunday. Full results below:

Watkins Glen is a fast road course track. There are great passing zones. NASCAR teams have been coming to the track for decades, and there are teams with decades of notes on the track. There is something about this track that appears to make SVG appear mortal.

Last year’s race winner, Chris Buescher, is back in P12. We will see what the RFK Racing team does to get Buescher to the front so he can potentially win again at The Glen. It would lock him into the playoffs and take a weight off of his shoulders these last two weeks of the season.

Ryan Blaney shares warning from Bubba Wallace

Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace are really good friends. So, they give each other crap from time to time. With Blaney securing the pole award, a true upset over SVG, Wallace couldn’t help but troll his buddy a little bit.

“I mean, take little wins when you can get them. Bubba came up to me and said, ‘Well, that was a bad idea because now he’s going to really wax you tomorrow.’ I said, ‘Hey, beat him once this weekend.’ So, we gotta start somewhere. It’s just nice to start towards the front.

“Last year, at this race, we had a rough weekend and qualified in the back. Got into the wreck on Lap 1, and um, to turn around and have a much better start to the weekend at least, just hope to keep it up.”

Ryan Blaney was able to take down Shane van Gisbergen’s time from Group 1 by a narrow margin. 0.03 seconds was the difference between the 12 and 88. Blaney, being in Group 2, was safe from SVG making another lap on the track and taking the lead back.