{"id":858461,"date":"2026-08-15T01:32:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T01:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/858461\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T01:32:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T01:32:32","slug":"nascar-news-ryan-blaney-wins-pole-at-richmond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/858461\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR News: Ryan Blaney wins pole at Richmond"},"content":{"rendered":"

RICHMOND, Va. \u2014 Ryan Blaney (pictured) secured his fourth pole of the 2026 season and the 16th of his Cup Series career Friday at Richmond Raceway<\/a>, posting a lap of 121.485 mph in the closing minutes of qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u2013by Mark Cipolloni\u2013<\/p>\n

The Team Penske driver will start Saturday night\u2019s 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\u2014his 13th top-10 starting position of the year.<\/p>\n

Josh Berry put the Wood Brothers No. 21 Ford third, followed by last week\u2019s Iowa winner Ty Gibbs (No. 54 JGR Toyota) and William Byron (No. 24 Hendrick Chevrolet) in the top five.<\/p>\n

Blaney, the 2023 series champion, admitted qualifying has not always been his strength. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t kind of specify myself as a very good qualifier; for a little bit I struggled in qualifying and just wasn\u2019t able to find the one-lap speed. I was doing the wrong things behind the wheel,\u201d he said. \u201cBut 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd here [at Richmond], it\u2019s super tough because your last lap in practice to qualifying, you\u2019re qualifying like three seconds faster than what you just ran, so it\u2019s mentally, how do you switch over to that and figure out how to do it in one lap because the second lap today wasn\u2019t going to do it. Jonathan has done a good job of just trying to work through \u2014 how do we get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get our car better; we\u2019re not where we were last year in practice. Just got to continue to work on it and see what we can do,\u201d Dillon said of his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. \u201cI think we have tendencies of our car that are good, but we\u2019ve just got to get a little better, so we\u2019ll just go to work and see what we can find for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Practice Notes
Daniel Su\u00e1rez led Friday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Qualifying Results<\/p>\n

Pos
\nNo.
\nDriver
\nTeam
\nTime
\nSpeed<\/p>\n

1
\n12
\nRyan Blaney
\nBODYARMOR FLASH I.V. Ford
\n22.225
\n121.485<\/p>\n

2
\n19
\nChase Briscoe
\nBass Pro Shops Toyota
\n22.275
\n121.212<\/p>\n

3
\n21
\nJosh Berry
\nMotorcraft\/Quick Lane Ford
\n22.281
\n121.179<\/p>\n

4
\n54
\nTy Gibbs
\nVictory Junction\/Cookout Toyota
\n22.295
\n121.103<\/p>\n

5
\n24
\nWilliam Byron
\nCincinnati Chevrolet
\n22.347
\n120.822<\/p>\n

6
\n60
\nRyan Preece
\nCastrol Ford
\n22.435
\n120.348<\/p>\n

7
\n23
\nBubba Wallace
\nXfinity Toyota
\n22.450
\n120.267<\/p>\n

8
\n20
\nChristopher Bell
\nDeWalt Toyota
\n22.459
\n120.219<\/p>\n

9
\n6
\nBrad Keselowski
\nBuildSubmarines.com Ford
\n22.491
\n120.048<\/p>\n

10
\n22
\nJoey Logano
\nShell Pennzoil Ford
\n22.495
\n120.027<\/p>\n

11
\n88
\nConnor Zilisch #
\nWeatherTech Chevrolet
\n22.510
\n119.947<\/p>\n

12
\n42
\nJohn Hunter Nemechek
\nRexel Toyota
\n22.514
\n119.925<\/p>\n

13
\n9
\nChase Elliott
\nUniFirst Chevrolet
\n22.524
\n119.872<\/p>\n

14
\n11
\nDenny Hamlin
\nBob\u2019s Discount Furniture Toyota
\n22.532
\n119.830<\/p>\n

15
\n16
\nAJ Allmendinger
\nBlack\u2019s Tire\/Down East Heat & Air Chevrolet
\n22.546
\n119.755<\/p>\n

16
\n3
\nAustin Dillon
\nBass Pro Shops\/Winchester Supreme Long Range Chevrolet
\n22.575
\n119.601<\/p>\n

17
\n35
\nRiley Herbst
\nMonster Energy Toyota
\n22.577
\n119.591<\/p>\n

18
\n1
\nRoss Chastain
\nJockey 150th Anniversary Chevrolet
\n22.579
\n119.580<\/p>\n

19
\n17
\nChris Buescher
\nKroger\/Grab Kleenex Ford
\n22.606
\n119.437<\/p>\n

20
\n7
\nDaniel Suarez
\nUHP.com Chevrolet
\n22.622
\n119.353<\/p>\n

21
\n43
\nErik Jones
\nDollar Tree Toyota
\n22.631
\n119.305<\/p>\n

22
\n77
\nCarson Hocevar
\nZeigler Auto Group Chevrolet
\n22.632
\n119.300<\/p>\n

23
\n2
\nAustin Cindric
\nMenards\/Quaker State Ford
\n22.655
\n119.179<\/p>\n

24
\n38
\nZane Smith
\nAaron\u2019s Rent To Own Ford
\n22.665
\n119.126<\/p>\n

25
\n48
\nAlex Bowman
\nAlly Chevrolet
\n22.684
\n119.027<\/p>\n

26
\n71
\nMichael McDowell
\nWorkforce Chevrolet
\n22.690
\n118.995<\/p>\n

27
\n34
\nTodd Gilliland
\nLove\u2019s Travel Stops Ford
\n22.712
\n118.880<\/p>\n

28
\n47
\nRicky Stenhouse Jr.
\nBrazier Lumber Company Chevrolet
\n22.724
\n118.817<\/p>\n

29
\n41
\nCole Custer
\nHaasTooling.com Chevrolet
\n22.726
\n118.807<\/p>\n

30
\n5
\nKyle Larson
\nHendrickCars.com Chevrolet
\n22.742
\n118.723<\/p>\n

31
\n97
\nShane Van Gisbergen
\nMitti Chevrolet
\n22.773
\n118.561<\/p>\n

32
\n45
\nTyler Reddick
\nPinnacle Toyota
\n22.776
\n118.546<\/p>\n

33
\n33
\nAustin Hill(i)
\nMorgan & Morgan Chevrolet
\n22.780
\n118.525<\/p>\n

34
\n10
\nTy Dillon
\nBeaver Street Fisheries Chevrolet
\n22.789
\n118.478<\/p>\n

35
\n4
\nNoah Gragson
\nLong John Silver\u2019s Ford
\n22.858
\n118.121<\/p>\n

36
\n66
\nJosh Bilicki(i)
\nSouthern Tier Security Ford
\n23.302
\n115.870<\/p>\n

37
\n51
\nCody Ware
\nRocket Doctor Chevrolet
\n0.000
\n0.000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RICHMOND, Va. \u2014 Ryan Blaney (pictured) secured his fourth pole of the 2026 season and the 16th of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-858461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}