NASCAR Championship Race starting lineup: William Byron wins the pole to lead the Championship 4 drivers

Byron earns his fourth pole of the 2023 season with a shot at his first Cup championship

By Steven Taranto

Nov 4, 2023 at 6:42 pm ET • 2 min read

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William Byron won the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway in qualifying on Saturday, posting a lap of 27.150 (132.597 MPH) in the final round of time trials to win his fourth pole of the 2023 season and take a pivotal step towards his first Cup Series championship. With his first pole since Pocono in July, Byron will lead all Championship 4 drivers to the green flag on Sunday while also earning the No. 1 stall on pit road, giving himself and his team a major advantage during pit stops.

Byron had to outqualify Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson in the final round of qualifying, putting up a lap that was faster than the 2021 Cup Series champion and one of his Championship 4 rivals by just over four-tenths of a second. Byron was able to post the fastest lap despite not running a perfect lap, as he initially did not get through turns 1 and 2 well before recovering to get a solid exit of the corner.

.@WilliamByron showed poise en route to winning the pole for Sunday's #NASCAR Cup Series Championship race. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/LyVWOvLiDj
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) November 4, 2023

As Larson ended up earning the fourth starting spot, both Hendrick drivers set themselves well ahead of the other two Championship 4 drivers. Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney both missed the final round of qualifying, with Bell clocking in 13th quickest and Blaney posting a lap that was only good enough for the 15th starting spot.

After posting the fastest lap in Group A qualifying, Kevin Harvick earned the third starting spot for his 826th and final NASCAR Cup Series race with a lap of 27.186 in the final round. The retiring Harvick will complete his career having won 31 Cup Series poles, the first of which came at Daytona in July 2002 and the last of which came at Texas in November 2019.

Qualifying saw a driver change in the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford, as Brad Keselowski was summoned back to North Carolina to attend to his wife Paige, who has gone into labor with the couple's third child. Cole Custer qualified Keselowski's car in 31st, and RFK Racing said in a statement that the "expectation" is that Keselowski will return to Phoenix and race on Sunday.

With Saturday's qualifying session being the last of 2023, 15 different drivers won at least one pole in NASCAR's 75th Anniversary season. Christopher Bell's six poles were the most of any driver, while Joe Gibbs Racing's 13 poles were the most for any one race team.