Ryan Blaney Caps Off Dominant Day for Team Penske With Phoenix Pole

In what was a really strong Saturday for Ryan Blaney at Phoenix Raceway, the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford Mustang Dark Horse capped it off with a pole position for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series Freeway Insurance 500.

Blaney, who was also the fastest driver in practice earlier in the afternoon, turned a jaw-dropping lap time of 26.250 seconds (137.143 mph) in the qualifying session, which allowed him to collect his 17th career NASCAR Cup Series pole position by a margin of 0.032 seconds.

Winning the pole is a massive confidence boost for the two-time Phoenix Raceway race winner, as Blaney has never felt like he's been strong in qualifying at the 1-mile oval in Avondale, AZ, despite always racing well.

"Yeah, really proud of the lap, for sure. The car did everything it needed to do, and stuck when it needed to. So, overall, really good lap. I'm not the best qualifier at this place, I feel like I race better than I qualify," Blaney explained. "So, really, really proud of the effort by all of the 12 boys for just working on what we need to do for better qualifying speed and what we need to do to be better."

Slotting in right behind Blaney on the speedcharts in qualifying was Joey Logano, Blaney's Team Penske teammate. With the strong performance on Saturday, Blaney hopes his team is ready to bring it in Sunday's race, as well.

"Great place to start for the weekend, and Penske front row, that's awesome. And hopefully, we have something for them tomorrow," Blaney said.

Right behind the Team Penske duo at the front of the field will be a trio of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers as Chase Briscoe, who comes into this race on a two-race winning streak, qualified third; Denny Hamlin was fourth, and Christopher Bell turned the fifth-fastest lap of the qualifying session.

Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, Michael McDowell, Josh Berry, and William Byron rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Sunday's Freeway Insurance 500 at Phoenix.

Kyle Larson, the defending series champion and current point leader, missed his marks on his qualifying run, and was only able to record the 22nd-best qualifying speed. The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet will start deep in the field on Sunday.

Other Chase contenders outside of the top-10 in qualifying on Saturday included Daniel Suarez (14th), Austin Cindric (15th), Chase Elliott (16th), Chris Buescher (17th), Bubba Wallace (23rd), Ryan Preece (26th), and Carson Hocevar (28th).

Freeway Insurance 500 Starting Lineup

(C) indicates a Chase contender
# Indicates a Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates a driver ineligible to score points
* indicates an "Open" entry