{"id":62193,"date":"2026-10-31T18:46:04","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T23:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=62193"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:47:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T23:47:20","slug":"denny-hamlin-wins-pole-in-potential-must-win-race-at-martinsville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/31\/denny-hamlin-wins-pole-in-potential-must-win-race-at-martinsville\/","title":{"rendered":"Denny Hamlin wins pole in potential must-win race at Martinsville"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain <\/b>| <\/b>NASCAR Wire Service<\/b><\/p>\n

MARTINSVILLE, VA. \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin claimed the Busch Light Pole Position for Sunday\u2019s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) \u2013 giving the championship contender a single-season, career-high six poles and at least the green flag advantage on the field with two races remaining to determine the NASCAR Cup Series title.<\/p>\n

\"\"
MARTINSVILLE, VIRGINIA – OCTOBER 31: Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 King’s Hawaiian Maple Brown Sugar Toyota, drives during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway on October 31, 2026 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by David Jensen\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamlin\u2019s No. 11 JGR Toyota turned in a lap of 98.492 mph around the historic .526-mile oval nestled among the Southern Virginia Fall foliage Saturday afternoon just bettering his JGR teammate, Ty Gibbs in the No. 45 JGR Toyota by a slight 049-second.<\/p>\n

Five of Hamlin\u2019s last six race victories have come from pole position and his work Saturday puts him in front of the seven drivers still mathematically title-eligible.<\/p>\n

Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 Kyle Larson, who leads the standings by 73 points over Hamlin, will roll off third in the No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet. Team Penske Ford teammates Austin Cindric and championship-eligible Joey Logano round out the top-five qualifiers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt always makes strategy easier when you\u2019ve qualified up front,\u2019\u2019 said the 45-year-old Virginian, who now has six career poles at his home state track and 54 in his decorated career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt very good about it,\u2019\u2019 Hamlin said of the fast lap. \u201cI knew coming off Turn four it was enough and it\u2019s a really good feeling.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"
MARTINSVILLE, VIRGINIA – OCTOBER 31: Denny Hamlin, driver of the #11 King’s Hawaiian Maple Brown Sugar Toyota, poses for photos after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway on October 31, 2026 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hamlin has six victories at Martinsville \u2013 most among active drivers. His last came in the spring, 2025 race. He started from pole position and finished runner-up to Larson\u2019s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott this Spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a great lap, truthfully hit all the marks I wanted to hit and car did all the things I needed it to do on that first lap,\u2019\u2019 Hamlin continued. \u201cReally great job by the race team, great adjustments there and we\u2019ll see what we\u2019ve got tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to give it all we\u2019ve got and all we\u2019ve got is all we\u2019ve got. I wish I had a little bit more, but we just need to control our own destiny tomorrow and that\u2019s getting the best day we can and let all the chips fall from there.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Larson won at Martinsville in 2023 and is on a streak of eight consecutive top-10 finishes here – including runner-up showings in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was solid – I was hopeful for the lap time to show a little faster,\u2019\u2019 Larson said of his qualifying work. \u201cHappy to start on the first couple rows and hopefully we can stay in the hunt all day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody else is convinced that we\u2019re going to lock it up here this weekend but to me, I don\u2019t look at it that way,\u2019\u2019 he said of the title fight. \u201cObviously Denny\u2019s starting ahead of me and he\u2019s really, really good here, and was a point away from a max points day earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m more looking at how to keep it up front to leave myself a buffer for next week. We\u2019ll see how the race plays out but that\u2019s kind of my mindset. But Denny\u2019s definitely a much better short track racer than me. So just trying to stay in the hunt.<\/p>\n

Roush Fenway Keselowski driver Ryan Preece was sixth fastest followed by  Hendrick teammates Alex Bowman, defending race winner William Byron and this Spring\u2019s Martinsville winner Chase Elliott. Wood Brothers\u2019 driver Josh Berry rounds out the top-10.<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s JGR teammates Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell round out the top four in the championship standings and will start 11th and 14th on the grid. They are 79 (Briscoe) and 74 (Bell) points off Larson\u2019s pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain | NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, VA. \u2013 Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin claimed the Busch Light Pole Position for Sunday\u2019s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) \u2013 giving the championship contender a single-season, career-high six poles and at least the green flag advantage on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":62188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[41,407,16],"class_list":["post-62193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-martinsville-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-gb7","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/GettyImages-2302872007-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62193","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=62193"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62197,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62193\/revisions\/62197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}