Chase Briscoe wins pole for YellaWood 500 at Talladega

Chase Briscoe's first pole of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season couldn't have come at a better time. 

Briscoe won the pole for Saturday's YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, a race he is the defending winner of, with a lap time of 51.466 seconds/186.065 miles per hour around the 2.66-mile Alabama Superspeedway.

It's the 10th pole of Briscoe's Cup career and his eighth since joining Joe Gibbs Racing last year. 

NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series superspeedway ace Austin Hill will join Briscoe on the front row, with Connor Zilisch, Shane van Gisbergen and Chris Buescher rounding out the top five. Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin and defending champion and points leader Kyle Larson completed the top 10. 

Notable qualifying results

Other notable qualifying results include Cody Ware in 11th, Daniel Suarez in 13th, Joey Logano in 16th, William Byron in 17th, Chase Elliott in 18th, Ryan Preece in 19th, Bubba Wallace in 25th, spring Talladega winner Carson Hocevar in 26th, Ryan Blaney in 27th, Austin Cindric in 28th and Phoenix winner Tyler Reddick in 33rd. Gray Gaulding will start last (40th) after running a lap of 52.875 seconds/181.106 miles per hour.

Sunday's YellaWood 500 will go green shortly after 2 p.m. ET, with coverage on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Larson leads Bell by five points with three races left in the season, while the top seven drivers in the standings are separated by only 56 points.