What’s Happening?

William Byron scored his 14th career pole, 1st of the season, at Darlington Raceway. He beat the Next-Gen car lap record at the racetrack with a flying lap of 28.774 seconds, surpassing the previous lap of 28.805 seconds set by Joey Logano in the same race in 2022. It’s worth noting that this lap is still far off from Aric Almirola’s 26.705 seconds, the overall record set in 2014. Byron now has two poles at the track, tying Joey Logano for most among active drivers, and is seeking his second win at The Lady in Black.

William Byron’s silver scheme is a fan favorite and throws it back to Jeff Gordon’s final full-time ride at Homestead in 2015, a race in which Gordon battled for a championship, taking home a 3rd place behind Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick.

Saturday’s Practice & Qualifying Sessions

Byron showed incredible speed, nearing one tenth faster than the second-place qualifier, but there were some notable performances besides him.

• Ryan Preece in 2nd: His first front-row start this season and clearly a sign of a fast car for Sunday. Preece has a 3-race top 10 streak, which dates back to Las Vegas on March 16th, where he achieved a 3rd place finish.
• Chase Briscoe in 4th: Briscoe was the only driver to finish top 5 in both races at Darlington in 2024, winning the regular-season finale by holding off Kyle Busch and clinching a playoff spot. He looks strong for yet another race at the track.
• Bubba Wallace in 5th: Coming off of the hottest streak of his career, Bubba Wallace is already looking strong this season. With a few consecutive top 3 finishes, Bubba is 8th in points, 7th races into the season, which is, by a considerable margin, his best yet.
• Michael McDowell in 10th: Yet another strong qualifying performance for Spire Motorsports, but it seems like they haven’t translated that speed into results on Sunday. Will that finally change?
• Ty Gibbs in 11th: It’s safe to say Ty Gibbs needs some good results to turn around his recent history. With a good car and a decent run at Martinsville, despite an incident with Tyler Reddick, Gibbs’s 11th place is his best starting position this season. It’s a good opportunity for a much-needed good finish.

Qualifying wasn’t very eventful, with no spins or wrecks and even few wall scrapes per Darlington standards. Here are the full qualifying results and each driver’s pit selection.

• In practice, only one incident occurred, as John Hunter Nemechek spun during the first group session but avoided contact and is unlikely to need repairs.

• Carson Hocevar set the fastest lap overall (29.26) and also led the fastest 5-lap run average (29.75), but Josh Berry led the 10 and 15-lap averages, with times of 30.08 and 30.32, respectively.

• Only 15 cars completed runs of 20+ laps.

That’s a wrap for today. Thank you for staying around, Daily Downforce readers. Let us know what you think. What are your expectations for the race at 3:00 PM EST on FS1? Join the discussion on our Discord or X, and remember to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for more updates.