KANSAS CITY, Kan. – William Byron and Kyle Larson will line up on the front row for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.
Byron posted a lap of 179.206 mph in the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 to earn the top starting spot. Larson’s lap of 179.170 mph in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was good for the second spot.
The pole is Byron’s second of the season and 10th of his career. All 10 of his poles have come at different tracks. It is also the 244th for Hendrick Motorsports in the Cup Series and the organization’s fifth of 2023. The Kansas race will mark the first time since the 2023 DAYTONA 500 that the 14-time Cup Series championship-winning organization has lined up one-two for a race.
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Byron’s six top-10 finishes at Kansas are tied for his most at any one track and have come in the last seven races at the 1.5-mile facility. He won the series’ last race contested on a 1.5-mile track, which was at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March 2023, and Hendrick Motorsports swept the top-three finishing positions in that race.
"It feels really good to get a pole," Byron said. "Kansas (Speedway) is where I got my first truck win (in 2016) and that was really exciting, and I’ve never won here again. Hopefully, tomorrow can be a little bit better.
"We’ve been kind of inching up on it in the Cup Series at this racetrack. We had good runs here last year. Leading the race in the spring and got a flat tire, and then finished I think sixth in the fall race. We’ve been pretty good here. It’s just a matter of putting it all together and hopefully tomorrow is the day."
Larson won the 2021 playoff race at Kansas and has three straight top-eight finishes there. Over the last four races at the Midwest venue, he has led the most laps (291) of any driver. Since coming to Hendrick Motorsports for the 2021 season, the 30-year-old driver has five wins on 1.5-mile tracks.
Chase Elliott will start 21st in the No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Elliott has a win and six top-five finishes (his second-most at any track in the series) in 14 starts at Kansas. In his three starts back behind the wheel after missing six races with a fractured tibia, the 27-year-old has finished in the top 12 in each race.
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Josh Berry will line up 29th in the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Berry is filling in for the injured Alex Bowman, who is sidelined for after suffering a fractured vertebra in a sprint car accident in Iowa on April 25. The 32-year-old Hendersonville, Tennessee, native, has posted three top-10 finishes in six starts with Hendrick Motorsports.
In practice, Larson placed seventh to be the top Hendrick Motorsports car on the chart. Both of team's two-time winners in 2023 – Larson and Byron – were sixth and eighth, respectively, on the consecutive 10-lap average chart. Byron scraped the wall off of turn three but was able to continue with the session.
With eight wins, the team has the most victories among all Cup Series organizations at Kansas. Jeff Gordon won the first race at the track in 2001 and earned three in total at this track. Jimmie Johnson also posted three wins at the Kansas City, Kansas, venue. Elliott and Larson each have one triumph as well. The team’s 1,870 laps out front at the facility are also the best among all teams in the series.
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Tune in to watch the Hendrick Motorsports quartet take on Kansas on Sunday, May 7, at 3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
