NASCAR Cup Richmond starting lineup: Ryan Blaney takes…

NASCAR Cup Richmond starting lineup: Ryan Blaney takes pole position

The grid is set for Saturday night's NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway. Team Penske's Ryan Blaney earned pole position in the No. 12 Ford, running a fast lap of 22.225s. He will share the front row with Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, who missed the pole by 0.050s.

"I appreciate the cloud," said Blaney after practice. "I think a handful of us got the benefit of the cloud. We had a really good day. I thought our car was decent in practice. Qualifying is always super tough here. After running 50 or 60 laps in practice here, you're going to go out and run about three seconds faster than what your last lap was. You just hope you hit it right. The No. 12 car was great ... I'm excited for tomorrow. It's going to be a fun night under the lights. Hopefully we got something for them."

Josh Berry qualified third, Ty Gibbs fourth, and William Byron fifth. Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski, and Joey Logano filled out the remainder of the top ten.

Qualifying recap

The first lap was the 'money' lap as the tires fell off too much to make the second lap worth it. Keselowski set the early benchmark at a 22.491s, and held P1 until RFK Racing teammate Ryan Preece set a 22.435s lap.

They remained 1-2 for a bit, but Berry was the next driver to take provisional pole, going much faster with a 22.281s lap. It was then Briscoe who eclipsed Berry by just 0.006s, and finally Blaney who went out near the very end of the session.

There were no incidents and 35 of the 36 entries put down a lap. Cody Ware, who spun in practice, did not.

Austin Cindric entered this race with the 16th and final spot inside the Chase field, and he will start 23rd.

NASCAR Cup Richmond Lineup

cla	#	driver	manufacturer	time	gap	mph
1	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	22.225		121.485
2	19	Chase Briscoe	Toyota	22.275	0.050	121.212
3	21	Josh Berry	Ford	22.281	0.056	121.179
4	54	Ty Gibbs	Toyota	22.295	0.070	121.103
5	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	22.347	0.122	120.822
6	60	Ryan Preece	Ford	22.435	0.210	120.348
7	23	Bubba Wallace	Toyota	22.450	0.225	120.267
8	20	Christopher Bell	Toyota	22.459	0.234	120.219
9	6	Brad Keselowski	Ford	22.491	0.266	120.048
10	22	Joey Logano	Ford	22.495	0.270	120.027
11	88	Connor Zilisch	Chevrolet	22.510	0.285	119.947
12	42	John Hunter Nemechek	Toyota	22.514	0.289	119.925
13	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	22.524	0.299	119.872
14	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	22.532	0.307	119.830
15	16	AJ Allmendinger	Chevrolet	22.546	0.321	119.755
16	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	22.575	0.350	119.601
17	35	Riley Herbst	Toyota	22.577	0.352	119.591
18	1	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	22.579	0.354	119.580
19	17	Chris Buescher	Ford	22.606	0.381	119.437
20	7	Daniel Suarez	Chevrolet	22.622	0.397	119.353
21	43	Erik Jones	Toyota	22.631	0.406	119.305
22	77	Carson Hocevar	Chevrolet	22.632	0.407	119.300
23	2	Austin Cindric	Ford	22.655	0.430	119.179
24	38	Zane Smith	Ford	22.665	0.440	119.126
25	48	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	22.684	0.459	119.027
26	71	Michael McDowell	Chevrolet	22.690	0.465	118.995
27	34	Todd Gilliland	Ford	22.712	0.487	118.880
28	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr	Chevrolet	22.724	0.499	118.817
29	41	Cole Custer	Chevrolet	22.726	0.501	118.807
30	5	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	22.742	0.517	118.723
31	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Chevrolet	22.773	0.548	118.561
32	45	Tyler Reddick	Toyota	22.776	0.551	118.546
33	33	Austin Hill	Chevrolet	22.780	0.555	118.525
34	10	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	22.789	0.564	118.478
35	4	Noah Gragson	Ford	22.858	0.633	118.121
36	66	Josh Bilicki	Ford	23.302	1.077	115.870
37	51	Cody Ware	Chevrolet