Why 2026 Daytona 500 qualifying will be unpredictable

For over a decade, NASCAR teams rolled into Daytona Beach, Florida, expecting to see a Chevrolet on the pole for the Daytona 500. 

From 2008 to 2023, a Chevrolet won 15 of 16 Daytona 500 poles, including 11 in a row from 2013 to 2023. Of those 15, Hendrick Motorsports drivers won 11. 

Team Penske driver Joey Logano broke Chevy's stranglehold on the pole position for NASCAR's biggest race in 2024, while Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe earned the first Daytona 500 pole for Toyota in 2025. 

Superspeedway qualifying over the last two years has been less kind to Chevrolet as a whole. Over the last seven qualifying sessions at Daytona and Talladega — there was no qualifying for the 2025 Daytona summer race — only one pole position was won by a Chevy driver (Spire Motorsports' Michael McDowell at Talladega in October 2025). 

Ford is on the rise

It was the blue ovals of Ford who dominated superspeedway qualifying in 2024. In addition to Logano's Daytona 500 pole, McDowell, then driving for Front Row Motorsports, won the pole for both Talladega races and the summer Daytona race. 

Front Row's Zane Smith scored his first career Cup Series pole at Talladega in April 2025. 

Meanwhile, Briscoe's Daytona 500 pole in 2025 was Toyota's first on a superspeedway since Denny Hamlin at Talladega in April 2023.

Is there a favorite? 

Much of the focus will deservedly be on the battle just to make the Daytona 500. Forty-five entries will show up for just 41 spots in the "Great American Race," meaning four teams will be sent home at the end of the two 150-mile duel qualifying races on Thursday. 

But the only way to lock in your starting spot on Wednesday evening is to qualify on the front row, and the only way to go down in history is to win the pole. 

Suffice to say, winning the pole for the Daytona 500 remains a big deal. 

Briscoe, who emerged as a superstar with JGR in 2025, is the defending pole winner and won the most recent superspeedway race at Talladega in October 2025. But it's difficult to bet against the four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets in qualifying. 

All four HMS drivers — Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, Kyle Larson and William Byron — have won the pole for the Daytona 500. Byron, the two-time defending Daytona 500 winner, and Larson each have one Daytona 500 pole to their name, while Elliott has two and Bowman has three. 

There are only nine former Daytona 500 pole winners qualifying for this year's race. That includes the Briscoe, Logano and the aforementioned Hendrick quartet. 

The other three are 2020 pole winner and 2023 Daytona 500 champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 2014 pole winner and 2018 Daytona 500 champion Austin Dillon and two-time Daytona 500 pole winner (2002, 2008) and two-time Daytona 500 champion (2006, 2013) Jimmie Johnson. 

Logano and his Team Penske teammates, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric, are sure to be fast once the green flag flies on Feb. 15, but Ford's best chance at winning the pole for the 500 likely lies with Front Row Motorsports, given the organization's recent success in superspeedway qualifying. 

Toyota's best chance at the pole may be Briscoe, but they also have Johnson, who will drive the No. 84 Toyota for the team he co-owns in LEGACY Motor Club, in their corner. 

Daytona 500 qualifying will be a spectacle in and of itself, and it should be a wild and unpredictable show before the main event.