Chase Briscoe Scores Brickyard 400 Pole, Hamlin to Backup after Crash

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – The Toyotas have come to play at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Native Hoosier Chase Briscoe, who hails from Mitchell, Indiana, will lead the Brickyard 400 field to green in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after putting up a 49.136 second lap around the famed 2.5-mile oval at 183.165 mph to score his fifth pole of the season.

In addition, it marks pole wins in all three of the Crown Jewel races thus far in 2025, having also won the pole for the Daytona 500 and Coca-Cola 600.

“Super, super special today – just to qualify on the pole here,” Briscoe said of scoring the pole in front of his home crowd. “The Daytona 500 one was cool, going three in a row was cool, but being able to set on the pole here is just so special.

“I got out of the car, and hearing the crowd screaming – I don’t have that happen anywhere else, so it is just so cool to experience that. I was on the other side of the fence when Tony (Stewart) and (Ryan) Newman, and those other guys were doing it – being one of those Indiana kids, cheering for their Indiana driver, so now to be on the other side of the fence is special for sure.”

Briscoe added that his car wasn’t quite where he needed it after practice, but his team made the proper changes to it in the brief break before qualifying to allow him to run for the pole.

“Our team just does an incredible job of making adjustments – even after practice, we were a little bit off. Today was a great example of that. We just put in so effort and work. All of this week – we were practicing, whether it be race runs or qualifying runs in the simulator and just spending extra hours doing it – it makes a difference.”

23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace joins him on the front row in his No. 23 Toyota, falling just 0.013 seconds short of eclipsing Briscoe’s lap.

Three more Toyotas will follow to round out the top-five, with Erik Jones in third, Tyler Reddick in fourth, and Ty Gibbs in fifth. The top-five sweep marks the first time the brand has swept the top-five in qualifying since entering the NASCAR Cup Series in 2007.

William Byron was the best Chevrolet in sixth, followed by Chris Buescher as the best Ford in seventh. The remainder of the top-10 starters when the green flag drops on Sunday (2:00 pm ET on TNT) will be Carson Hocevar, AJ Allmendinger, and Austin Cindric.

Shane van Gisbergen posted his best non-road course qualifying effort with an 11^th place run, continuing his progression on the ovals in a season in which his performance has been road course heavy.

“Just time. Time and races. It’s a new experience for me. New car again,” van Gisbergen said of his progression on ovals as this season has played out.

“And yeah, it’s just so different to what I raced last year. The cars are night and day different, so it’s basically like I’ve started again. I just needed time and I’ve just been methodical with it, I feel like, and just not going too far out of our comfort zone, just trying to get better as we’re going. And it seems to be working.”

Turn Two Treachery

Throughout the qualifying session, Turn 2 became calamity corner, with a number of drivers washing up high off the corner and making contact with the outside wall, including Michael McDowell and Kyle Busch.

But Denny Hamlin certainly got the worst of it out of them all as his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota tagged the outside wall, which in turned caused him to lose control and spin down into the inside wall, making heavy contact.

After his beaten and battered machine was towed back to the garage, his team immediately began unloading and preparing a backup car for Sunday’s race.

Hamlin will have to roll off from the tail end of the field in 39^th place as he attempts to add a Brickyard 400 trophy to his resume.

There’s trouble for @dennyhamlin on his qualifying lap! pic.twitter.com/mhYh8tzWLL

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 26, 2025