RICHMOND, Va. — Ryan Blaney (pictured) secured his fourth pole of the 2026 season and the 16th of his Cup Series career Friday at Richmond Raceway, posting a lap of 121.485 mph in the closing minutes of qualifying.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

The Team Penske driver will start Saturday night’s Cook Out 400 from the point in the No. 12 Ford. Chase Briscoe, driving the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, qualified just 0.050 seconds slower and will start alongside him on the front row—his 13th top-10 starting position of the year.

Josh Berry put the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford third, followed by last week’s Iowa winner Ty Gibbs (No. 54 JGR Toyota) and William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Chevrolet) in the top five.

Blaney, the 2023 series champion, admitted qualifying has not always been his strength. “I wouldn’t kind of specify myself as a very good qualifier; for a little bit I struggled in qualifying and just wasn’t able to find the one-lap speed. I was doing the wrong things behind the wheel,” he said. “But I think [crew chief] Jonathan [Hassler] and I kind of worked through how do we make it better. Adjust that end-of-race mindset to qualifying.

“And here [at Richmond], it’s super tough because your last lap in practice to qualifying, you’re qualifying like three seconds faster than what you just ran, so it’s mentally, how do you switch over to that and figure out how to do it in one lap because the second lap today wasn’t going to do it. Jonathan has done a good job of just trying to work through — how do we get better.”

Championship leader Denny Hamlin, a five-time Richmond winner, qualified 14th. Two-time defending race winner Austin Dillon starts 16th in the 37-car field as he tries to become only the fourth driver in NASCAR history to win three consecutive races at the 0.75-mile track, joining Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and David Pearson.

“We’ve got to get our car better; we’re not where we were last year in practice. Just got to continue to work on it and see what we can do,” Dillon said of his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. “I think we have tendencies of our car that are good, but we’ve just got to get a little better, so we’ll just go to work and see what we can find for tomorrow.”

Practice Notes
Daniel Suárez led Friday’s practice with a 117.961 mph lap in the Spire Motorsports entry. Erik Jones, Austin Cindric, Riley Herbst and Alex Bowman rounded out the top five. Denny Hamlin, Ty Dillon, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski and Josh Berry completed the top 10.

Cindric posted the best 10- and 20-lap averages. Kyle Larson was fastest over 15 laps, while Blaney led the 25- and 30-lap runs. Cody Ware and Tyler Reddick each spun in Turns 3 and 4 during Group 1 practice; Group 2 ran without incident.

Qualifying Results

Pos
No.
Driver
Team
Time
Speed

1
12
Ryan Blaney
BODYARMOR FLASH I.V. Ford
22.225
121.485

2
19
Chase Briscoe
Bass Pro Shops Toyota
22.275
121.212

3
21
Josh Berry
Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford
22.281
121.179

4
54
Ty Gibbs
Victory Junction/Cookout Toyota
22.295
121.103

5
24
William Byron
Cincinnati Chevrolet
22.347
120.822

6
60
Ryan Preece
Castrol Ford
22.435
120.348

7
23
Bubba Wallace
Xfinity Toyota
22.450
120.267

8
20
Christopher Bell
DeWalt Toyota
22.459
120.219

9
6
Brad Keselowski
BuildSubmarines.com Ford
22.491
120.048

10
22
Joey Logano
Shell Pennzoil Ford
22.495
120.027

11
88
Connor Zilisch #
WeatherTech Chevrolet
22.510
119.947

12
42
John Hunter Nemechek
Rexel Toyota
22.514
119.925

13
9
Chase Elliott
UniFirst Chevrolet
22.524
119.872

14
11
Denny Hamlin
Bob’s Discount Furniture Toyota
22.532
119.830

15
16
AJ Allmendinger
Black’s Tire/Down East Heat & Air Chevrolet
22.546
119.755

16
3
Austin Dillon
Bass Pro Shops/Winchester Supreme Long Range Chevrolet
22.575
119.601

17
35
Riley Herbst
Monster Energy Toyota
22.577
119.591

18
1
Ross Chastain
Jockey 150th Anniversary Chevrolet
22.579
119.580

19
17
Chris Buescher
Kroger/Grab Kleenex Ford
22.606
119.437

20
7
Daniel Suarez
UHP.com Chevrolet
22.622
119.353

21
43
Erik Jones
Dollar Tree Toyota
22.631
119.305

22
77
Carson Hocevar
Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet
22.632
119.300

23
2
Austin Cindric
Menards/Quaker State Ford
22.655
119.179

24
38
Zane Smith
Aaron’s Rent To Own Ford
22.665
119.126

25
48
Alex Bowman
Ally Chevrolet
22.684
119.027

26
71
Michael McDowell
Workforce Chevrolet
22.690
118.995

27
34
Todd Gilliland
Love’s Travel Stops Ford
22.712
118.880

28
47
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Brazier Lumber Company Chevrolet
22.724
118.817

29
41
Cole Custer
HaasTooling.com Chevrolet
22.726
118.807

30
5
Kyle Larson
HendrickCars.com Chevrolet
22.742
118.723

31
97
Shane Van Gisbergen
Mitti Chevrolet
22.773
118.561

32
45
Tyler Reddick
Pinnacle Toyota
22.776
118.546

33
33
Austin Hill(i)
Morgan & Morgan Chevrolet
22.780
118.525

34
10
Ty Dillon
Beaver Street Fisheries Chevrolet
22.789
118.478

35
4
Noah Gragson
Long John Silver’s Ford
22.858
118.121

36
66
Josh Bilicki(i)
Southern Tier Security Ford
23.302
115.870

37
51
Cody Ware
Rocket Doctor Chevrolet
0.000
0.000