Van Gisbergen outside top 30 in tricky Pocono qualifying

Ross Chastain led the team’s efforts in 24th ahead of Connor Zilisch in 28th and Shane van Gisbergen in 31st.

Van Gisbergen was 1.243s off pace setter Denny Hamlin, who achieved his 64th career pole and his fourth of the season.

The Joe Gibbs Racing star was the only driver in the 38-car field to go below the 52-second bracket with a 51.048s in his Toyota Camry.

Hamlin will line up alongside Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson while Spire Motorsports’ Daniel Suarez and Ty Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing line up on row two.

“Certainly had the grip,” said Hamlin.

“This whole team just did a great job with adjustments, making it a little better from practice.

“I didn’t execute a very good lap there in Turn 2, but overall I thought I hit [Turn] 3 and 1 pretty decent – just good enough.

“It’s certainly going well and confidence is up with these guys that every time I enter a corner at about 200 [mph], I know they’ve built me a car that’s going to stick.

“This is the best shot for sure, we’ve got a little work to do on the car overnight to get it to be a race winner, but I feel like we’re in that box where we need to be and we’ll fine tune it from here.”

Qualifying featured one incident for 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who will start last in his Toyota Camry.

RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski will start second-to-last after his Ford Mustang suffered an engine issue.

Monday’s race, the Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA, has been brought forward due to inclement weather with a 3:00am AEST start time.

Results: NASCAR Cup Series Great American Getaway 400 Qualifying, Pocono Raceway