Chip Ganassi likes winners, and his drivers have him in prime position to celebrate another victory.
Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray swept the front row in Saturday qualifying at Sonoma Raceway to give Chip Ganassi Racing a 1-2 start for today’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup race on the wine country road course.
Larson turned a lap at 95.295 mph and just nipped his teammate, who ran his qualifying lap at 95.204 in the Ganassi Chevrolet. McMurray is seeking his first win of the season.
Larson is coming off a Cup win last week at Michigan — where he also started from the pole — and is looking to make it two consecutive wins. In fact, Larson is on an incredible hot streak and, including his sprint car races, has four total wins in the last two weeks.
“The whole lap actually felt pretty bad,” Larson said of his qualifier. “I felt like I gave up enough there that I wouldn’t have a shot at the pole. So, I was surprised and I was happy about that. This is cool to get a pole on a road course at my home state. This is my closest track to Sacramento, or Elk Grove, where I grew up. I have lots of friends and family here.”
Martin Truex Jr., the most consistent driver this season, qualified third in a Toyota for Furniture Row Racing, and Kyle Busch was fourth in a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.
AJ Allmendinger was fifth for JTG Daugherty Racing, and Danica Patrick was sixth for Stewart-Haas Racing in her best qualifying run of the season. She was also the highest qualifying Ford.
“Let’s be honest, I just love the area,” Patrick said. “And I had a glass of my wine before I made my lap. That’s a joke. But I am really comfortable here.”
Ryan Blaney was seventh and followed by Chase Elliott, who is in a backup car following a Friday wreck. Chris Buescher was ninth and the rest of the final round of qualifying was rounded out by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Daniel Suarez — a rookie driving the car that Carl Edwards won the pole in last year — and Kevin Harvick.
IndyCar
Team Penske will have a stranglehold on the first two rows in today’s IndyCar race at Road America in Elkhart, Wisconsin.
Helio Castroneves won the pole, turning a lap in 1 minute, 41.30 seconds at 142.649 mph. It was his 50th career pole, and third of the season.
Castroneves edged teammate Will Power by 0.06 seconds. Power won the race last year at the rural Wisconsin road course.
“He just gets faster as he gets older,” Power joked. “He’s like wine.”
Castroneves is in his 20th IndyCar season. He won his first pole in 1999 at the Milwaukee Mile.
He seems as enthusiastic as ever.
As he walked to the podium after qualifying, Castroneves talked about the honor of winning what he thought was his 51st career pole before he was corrected by the moderator.
“Did I say 51? Sorry it’s a bad habit,” said Castroneves, clearing his throat. “Well anyway, you guys know what I’m talking about.”
Two more Penske drivers will start in the second row today after Josef Newgarden qualified third and Simon Pagenaud fourth. The Chevy-powered Penske cars also turned in the fastest practice times most of the weekend.
Points leader Scott Dixon will start fifth, with Graham Rahal sixth.
“You know, obviously (Penske has) got something going here that we don’t,” Rahal said. “We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Go out there and take the challenge to them, as will Dixie, (and) see what happens.”
NASCAR Xfinity
Rookie William Byron grabbed the lead with just over 20 laps and won the NASCAR Xfinity race at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa. A seven-time winner last year in the Truck Series, Byron broke through just a week after an agonizingly close defeat to Monster Energy Cup star Denny Hamlin at Michigan.
The 19-year-old Byron drives the No. 9 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports.
Ryan Sieg was second in the stand-alone race with no Cup regulars in the field.
Tyler Reddick was third, followed by Ross Chastain and Dakoda Armstrong.
Christopher Bell led 152 laps in just his second career start in the series before a late wreck cost relegated him to 16th. He led a race-high 99 laps in the Truck race Friday night.
NHRA
Matt Hagan topped Funny Car qualifying in the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio with his track-record time Friday night.
Hagan took his third No. 1 qualifier of the season with a 3.865-second pass at 333.33 mph in a Dodge Charger R/T.
“I feel pretty good about this track and this car, so we definitely feel like we have an opportunity to turn on four win lights tomorrow,” Hagan said. “We know we need to put this car in the winner’s circle a few more times to move to the top spot in the standings, and that’s really what we are trying to do.”
Doug Kalitta led the Top Fuel qualifiers, Greg Anderson was the fastest in Pro Stock, and Matt Smith topped the Pro Stock Motorcycle field.
Kalitta broke the track time record Friday night with a 3.709 at 327.43. Anderson ran a 6.584 at 210.24 pass in a Chevrolet Camaro during the fourth and final session, and Smith had a 6.824 at 196.16 on a Victory Gunner in his third qualifying run.
Formula 1
Lewis Hamilton took the pole position for today’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of Valtteri Bottas, with Mercedes securing a convincing 1-2 as rival Ferrari lagged behind.
Bottas led qualifying and then set an even quicker time on his final lap — only for Hamilton to beat him by nearly half a second.
The British driver’s 66th pole moves him one ahead of F1 great Ayrton Senna and just two behind Michael Schumacher’s all-time record of 68.
Raikkonen qualified third ahead of his Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel, the championship leader.
After three difficult practice sessions, qualifying also proved tough.
With three minutes remaining a red flag came up, halting the session, after Daniel Ricciardo clipped the wall with the left side of his Red Bull coming out of Turn 6 — prompting an expletive from the Australian driver.
