{"id":54185,"date":"2025-08-30T12:15:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T17:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=54185"},"modified":"2025-08-30T20:31:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T01:31:31","slug":"darlington-ace-denny-hamlin-wins-pole-for-first-nascar-cup-playoff-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/30\/darlington-ace-denny-hamlin-wins-pole-for-first-nascar-cup-playoff-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Darlington ace Denny Hamlin wins pole for first NASCAR Cup Playoff race"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DARLINGTON, S.C.\u2014If any active driver has come close to mastering the Track Too Tough to Tame, it\u2019s Denny Hamlin, who asserted his superiority once again in Saturday\u2019s qualifying session for the Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET Sunday on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

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Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 Sport Clips Haircuts Toyota, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on August 30, 2025 in Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Gaining enormous time through Turns 3 and 4 on his single qualifying lap at Darlington Raceway, Hamlin knocked Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Chase Briscoe off the provisional pole for the first NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race.<\/p>\n

A five-time winner at Darlington\u2014most among active drivers\u2014Hamlin covered the 1.366-mile distance in 28.694 seconds (171.381 mph), beating Briscoe (171.255 mph) by 0.021 seconds. Briscoe had won the pole position for the previous three Crown Jewel races\u2014DAYTONA 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Brickyard 400.<\/p>\n

The Busch Light Pole Award was Hamlin\u2019s second at Darlington, his second of the season and the 45th of his career. He is the first driver to reach 40 poles in a Toyota, with his first five coming when JGR ran Chevrolets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned,\u201d Hamlin said of the performance of his No. 11 Camry. \u201cWe struggled with balance all through race practice, but we made some good adjustments to run one lap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin acknowledged his car still needs work to enhance its performance in race trim.<\/p>\n

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Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 Sport Clips Haircuts Toyota, speaks to the media after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on August 30, 2025 in Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

After a stellar first two corners on his qualifying lap, Briscoe wasn\u2019t as aggressive as he needed to be at the narrow end of the egg-shaped track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one stings,\u201d Briscoe said. \u201cMy 1 and 2 was really good, and I didn\u2019t want to go into (Turn) 3 and hit the wall or something, so I under-drove it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playoff drivers occupy the first 12 spots on the grid for Sunday\u2019s race. Josh Berry qualified third at 170.578 mph in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford. Tyler Reddick was fourth at 170.466 mph in the No. 45 23XI Toyota, followed by Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports in the top Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon, Austin Cindric, William Byron and Ryan Blaney will start from positions six through 12, respectively.<\/p>\n

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Christopher Bell, driver of the #20 Rheem Toyota, poses for photos after winning the pole award during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on August 30, 2025 in Darlington, South Carolina. (Photo by Logan Riely\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The remaining four Playoff drivers qualified as follows: Joey Logano 14th, Shane van Gisbergen 20th, Chase Elliott 21st and Alex Bowman 29th.<\/p>\n

Berry\u2019s qualifying performance was his best since starting second at Atlanta nine races ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super proud of that effort,\u201d he said. \u201cOur big focus was trying to qualify better here, and the guys did a great job. I feel like our car is really strong, and I\u2019m excited for (Sunday). The biggest thing I feel like I\u2019ve fought here is starting position, so starting up front I think we can just manage the race easier and obviously score some stage points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be important, so just having a mistake-free day by taking care of the car and having good pit stops will help keep us in the hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DARLINGTON, S.C.\u2014If any active driver has come close to mastering the Track Too Tough to Tame, it\u2019s Denny Hamlin, who asserted his superiority once again in Saturday\u2019s qualifying session for the Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET Sunday on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Gaining enormous time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":54177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[651,41,16],"class_list":["post-54185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-darlington-raceway","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2232863923-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-e5X","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54185"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54190,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54185\/revisions\/54190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}