Bobby Travis · NASCAR/IndyCar Correspondent
Ahead of the third-to-last race of the season, the third-placed driver in the Chase standings claims the top spot, while several title contenders have to start from far back.
Chase Briscoe won qualifying for the YellaWood 500 at Talladega on Saturday and will start from the pole on Sunday. With a lap of 51.466 seconds, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver edged Richard Childress Racing's Austin Hill by just 0.032 seconds. Qualifying kicks off the third-to-last race of the season and one of the decisive stops in the Chase, the Cup Series title fight.
Briscoe ahead of Hill, Trackhouse duo on row two
Briscoe and Hill will share the front row on Sunday, and the field behind them is packed extremely tight. Trackhouse Racing's Connor Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen secured third and fourth, with just 0.047 seconds separating the two teammates. Zilisch was only 0.052 seconds off the pole, van Gisbergen 0.099 seconds.
Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson rounded out the top 10, with tenth-placed Larson just 0.346 seconds off the pole. Joe Gibbs Racing put all four of its cars in the top 10, Briscoe finishing 0.143 seconds ahead of teammate Bell, while at Hendrick Motorsports Bowman had a 0.191-second edge over Larson.
Chase field spread deep
Qualifying went very differently for the title contenders. Ten of the 16 Chase drivers start outside the top 10, including some of the biggest names in the championship. Joey Logano will start 16th, William Byron 17th and Chase Elliott 18th. Ryan Blaney, actually fifth in the current standings, has to work his way forward from 27th, with teammate Austin Cindric right behind him in 28th.
The most striking starting position belongs to Tyler Reddick, who won the previous race at Phoenix. At Talladega he had a difficult qualifying session and will start only 33rd, far behind his leading Chase rivals. According to the official standings, Kyle Larson (2,370 points) leads the championship ahead of Christopher Bell (5 back) and Briscoe himself (24 back), while Reddick is already 56 points behind in seventh. A poor starting spot alone won't decide the outcome at Talladega, though, the nature of the track takes care of that.
Talladega levels the playing field
Talladega is one of the few true superspeedways on the Cup schedule, where pack racing defines the race. Unlike at the series' short tracks and mile ovals, the cars run nose to tail in big drafting packs here, and positions can change dramatically within a few laps. For drivers like Reddick, Blaney or Elliott, that means a poor starting spot is far from a lost cause, as long as they work their way forward cleanly through the draft.
For Briscoe, Hill and the strong Trackhouse duo up front, though, the pole is more than just a snapshot. Whoever controls the restarts after the inevitable cautions on Sunday and breaks away from the pack at the right moment should be up front at the end. With Larson, Bell, Briscoe and Hamlin close together in the standings, the YellaWood 500 promises not only a fight for the win but also another important step in the title fight, which will be decided purely on points after the finale at Homestead.
