Kevin Harvick beats Menard to Brickyard 400 pole

Harvick’s average lap speed of 185.766 mph went up midway through Sunday morning’s qualifying session and withstood a late challenge from Menard to give Harvick his third career pole in the Brickyard 400.

He won the event from the pole in 2003. The pole is his fifth of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season and 30th of his career.

“I just have to thank everyone on our team for everything that they do. I thought we had a good car yesterday in race trim. In practice, we never did any qualifying stuff,” Harvick said. 

“I think clean air is the strategy by handling is going to come into play at some point. We saw that after about Lap 10 yesterday (in the Xfinity race), we saw who’s cars were pushing and not pushing. You’re going to have to hang on to them the best that you can in the beginning of a run to be fast.

“We’ll have to keep an eye on the tire wear to see if we can do two-tire (stops). So, there’s a number of things that will come into play today and hopefully we can finish where we start.”

Harvick hasn’t finished worse than eighth in his last five starts at Indy.

Menard – who won the Brickyard 400 in 2011 for his only Cup series win – ended up second (185.724 mph) for his best start of the season and Clint Bowyer – who is fighting to make the playoff field – was third (185.277 mph). 

Joey Logano will line up fourth and Jimmie Johnson – trying to keep his playoff streak alive – starts fifth.

Rounding out the top-10 starters are Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Ryan Blaney and Aric Almirola.

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Time	Gap	Mph
1	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	48.448		185.766
2	21	Paul Menard		Ford	48.459	0.011	185.724
3	14	Clint Bowyer		Ford	48.576	0.128	185.277
4	22	Joey Logano		Ford	48.598	0.150	185.193
5	48	Jimmie Johnson		Chevrolet	48.601	0.153	185.181
6	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	48.628	0.180	185.079
7	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	48.707	0.259	184.778
8	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	48.723	0.275	184.718
9	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	48.733	0.285	184.680
10	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	48.750	0.302	184.615
11	8	Daniel Hemric		Chevrolet	48.751	0.303	184.612
12	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ford	48.799	0.351	184.430
13	88	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	48.828	0.380	184.320
14	20	Erik Jones		Toyota	48.880	0.432	184.124
15	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.		Chevrolet	48.905	0.457	184.030
16	37	Chris Buescher		Chevrolet	48.929	0.481	183.940
17	38	David Ragan		Ford	48.932	0.484	183.929
18	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	48.973	0.525	183.775
19	42	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	48.974	0.526	183.771
20	41	Daniel Suarez		Ford	49.008	0.560	183.643
21	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	49.044	0.596	183.509
22	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	49.107	0.659	183.273
23	47	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	49.170	0.722	183.038
24	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	49.198	0.750	182.934
25	13	Ty Dillon		Chevrolet	49.217	0.769	182.864
26	95	Matt DiBenedetto		Toyota	49.229	0.781	182.819
27	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	49.260	0.812	182.704
28	36	Matt Tifft		Ford	49.415	0.967	182.131
29	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	49.439	0.991	182.043
30	32	Corey Lajoie		Ford	49.565	1.117	181.580
31	00	Landon Cassill		Chevrolet	49.618	1.170	181.386
32	96	Parker Kligerman		Toyota	49.697	1.249	181.097
33	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	49.826	1.378	180.629
34	15	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	50.174	1.726	179.376
35	51	B.J. McLeod		Ford	50.491	2.043	178.250
36	27	Ryan Sieg		Chevrolet	50.884	2.436	176.873
37	77	Reed Sorenson		Chevrolet	50.954	2.506	176.630
38	52	Garrett Smithley		Ford	51.134	2.686	176.008
39	53	Josh Bilicki		Ford	51.429	2.981	174.999
40	54	J.J. Yeley		Chevrolet	51.550	3.102	174.588