Qualifying report

NASCAR Cup Watkins Glen starting lineup: Shane van Gisbergen beats McDowell to pole

All three Trackhouse cars qualified inside the top five as SVG rocketed to the top of the carts

The grid is set for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International. Defending winner Shane van Gisbergen earned pole position -- his first at the Glen but fifth at the Cup level. The impressive qualifying effort also comes on the Kiwi's 37th birthday!

Spire Motorsports' Michael McDowell will start from the outside of the front row, a full 0.259s off of SVG's fast lap of 1:11.165s.

Austin Cindric qualified third for Team Penske, while SVG's teammates Ross Chastain and Connor Zilisch were fourth and fifth, respectively.

"The guys did a good job tuning it for what I needed for the one lap," said Van Gisbergen. "It was really good, but all Trackhouse cars in the top five as well. We got some good cars here this weekend."

Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, and Ty Gibbs filled out the remainder of the top ten.

Watch: Van Gisbergen captures Cup pole at Watkins Glen

The 35-minute qualifying session got off to a slow start as cars hesitated to go out on track. Halfway through the session, only 15 cars had put down a time with Hocevar leading the way over Allmendinger.

With less than ten minutes to go, Van Gisbergen made his run with Zilisch following him around the track. The difference was all under braking into the bus stop, as the three-time Supercars champion gained a ton of time through that one section.

In the end, the gap between 1st and 2nd on the speed charts was more than the gap between 2nd and 14th, showcasing just how far ahead SVG was on his flying lap.

While there were four Chevrolets inside the top five, the top Hendrick Motorsports driver was William Byron down in 13th. Kyle Larson was back in 23rd, Texas winner Chase Elliott 27th, and Alex Bowman 28th.

23XI was another surprise, as Tyler Reddick had won the most recent road course race at COTA from pole, but he was only fast enough for 15th.

Katherine Legge, who had her car chief ejected after two inspection failures, qualified last, 5.3 seconds off the pole time.

Watch: SVG expects strategy-heavy Cup race at Watkins Glen

NASCAR Cup Watkins Glen Starting Lineup

cla	#	driver	manufacturer	laps	time	gap	mph
1	97	Shane van Gisbergen	Chevrolet	2	1'11.165		123.937
2	71	Michael McDowell	Chevrolet	2	1'11.424	0.259	123.488
3	2	Austin Cindric	Ford	2	1'11.445	0.280	123.452
4	1	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	2	1'11.449	0.284	123.445
5	88	Connor Zilisch	Chevrolet	3	1'11.483	0.318	123.386
6	22	Joey Logano	Ford	2	1'11.522	0.357	123.319
7	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	2	1'11.523	0.358	123.317
8	20	Christopher Bell	Toyota	3	1'11.582	0.417	123.215
9	19	Chase Briscoe	Toyota	4	1'11.583	0.418	123.214
10	54	Ty Gibbs	Toyota	2	1'11.615	0.450	123.159
11	77	Carson Hocevar	Chevrolet	4	1'11.620	0.455	123.150
12	16	AJ Allmendinger	Chevrolet	3	1'11.654	0.489	123.092
13	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	3	1'11.664	0.499	123.074
14	17	Chris Buescher	Ford	5	1'11.668	0.503	123.067
15	45	Tyler Reddick	Toyota	3	1'11.699	0.534	123.014
16	7	Daniel Suarez	Chevrolet	2	1'11.723	0.558	122.973
17	42	John Hunter Nemechek	Toyota	3	1'11.739	0.574	122.946
18	23	Bubba Wallace	Toyota	3	1'11.755	0.590	122.918
19	41	Cole Custer	Chevrolet	3	1'11.847	0.682	122.761
20	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	4	1'11.854	0.689	122.749
21	8	Kyle Busch	Chevrolet	5	1'11.890	0.725	122.687
22	34	Todd Gilliland	Ford	2	1'11.941	0.776	122.600
23	5	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	4	1'11.961	0.796	122.566
24	43	Erik Jones	Toyota	5	1'11.972	0.807	122.548
25	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	5	1'11.999	0.834	122.502
26	6	Brad Keselowski	Ford	3	1'12.060	0.895	122.398
27	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	2	1'12.067	0.902	122.386
28	48	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	5	1'12.095	0.930	122.339
29	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr	Chevrolet	3	1'12.122	0.957	122.293
30	60	Ryan Preece	Ford	6	1'12.124	0.959	122.289
31	10	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	4	1'12.148	0.983	122.249
32	35	Riley Herbst	Toyota	3	1'12.260	1.095	122.059
33	38	Zane Smith	Ford	2	1'12.264	1.099	122.052
34	21	Josh Berry	Ford	4	1'12.614	1.449	121.464
35	4	Noah Gragson	Ford	5	1'12.637	1.472	121.426
36	51	Cody Ware	Chevrolet	4	1'13.199	2.034	120.493
37	66	Josh Bilicki	Ford	2	1'14.090	2.925	119.044
38	78	Katherine Legge	Chevrolet	14	1'16.497	5.332	115.299