Kyle Larson Breaks Track Record and Beats Shane Van Gisbergen to Secure Pole at COTA

Kyle Larson has bagged his first pole position in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at the Circuits of the Americas. The driver of the #17 Hendrick Motorsports car had a good practice session, and he managed to replicate the same during round 1 of qualifying in Group A. Going into the final round of competing against the top 10 drivers, Larson clocked the best lap time of 2:12:08, which was just enough to beat Shane van Gisbergen.

SVG, who had the best running car of the day, was just shy of Larson and ran the second-fastest lap. His run will see him join the front row. Ty Gibbs managed to grab the third position, and Chandler Smith, in fourth, will complete the second row. AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top five spots with his finish at #5.

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Kyle Larson claimed his first pole position for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Circuits of the Americas. This was also his seventh career pole win in the series. Driving the #17 HMS car, the California native posted a time of 132.076 seconds (92.946 mph), which was also a track record.

Leading the charge in the qualifiers and the first round of Group B qualifying’s, van Gisbergen was just shy of four-tenths of a second in his final qualifying lap and secured the second position. However, all the hard work by the Kiwi speedster won’t be in vain, as he still starts in the front row.

Joining his Cup Series rival, Ty Gibbs secured a third spot, while Chandler Smith and AJ Allmendinger completed the top-five starts. Sage Karam, Sheldon Creed. Cole Custer, Daniel Hemric, and Sam Mayer will seal off the top 10 starting positions for the main event.

While the pole award does seem like a bid advantage, Larson was quick to highlight the challenges of running on the track and how it will be a tough event overall.

Kyle Larson is looking to get more comfortable at COTA running laps in the Cup Series car

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The big advantage Larson will have over his Xfinity Series rival is that he will be running the Cup Series qualifiers ahead of tomorrow’s race. For the Xfinity drivers running the laps today, most of them had their fair share of difficulty cutting through the tight turns of COTA. Even Larson had some issues in practice, but luckily his team was able to make the adjustments in time, and thus he managed to deliver a pole-winning performance.

“I was expecting the Xfinity cars to have more grip, but it was tough to get used to there in practice. With adjustments, I felt better from the first round in the areas where I struggled… For me, I get more laps in the Cup car tomorrow, which will hopefully help some things out, but really cool to get a pole here for HendrickCars.com, and we’ll see. It’s going to be tough. There’s lots of slipping and sliding, and it will be hard to keep your car going straight,” he said after the qualifiers.

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After starting off his season with an early Cup Series win in Vegas, Larson will be eyeing a win in the Xfinity Series at the tricky COTA race track.