If there was still doubt the Toyota teams had found speed in their cars, it was laid to rest Friday at Dover International Speedway.
Coming off the best performance all four Joe Gibbs Racing cars have had all season at Charlotte, Kyle Busch laid down a lap of 158.954mph in qualifying for the AAA 400 to win the pole. Behind Busch came Toyota teammates Martin Truex Jr. at 158.877mph, Daniel Suarez at 158.346mph and Matt Kenseth (who is the defending race winner) at 158.221mph.
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For Busch, it is his first pole of the season as well as his first at Dover. It is the 20th of his career. He was also the fastest in the second round of qualifying.
“It feels good; it feels great to beat that 78 (Truex),” Busch said. “Our [Toyota] team cars have been really fast this year, so those guys are really on it. But overall, couldn’t be more excited about this Pedigree Camry and the guys all the work that we’ve done all year long. But to sit on the pole here means a little bit for us – gives us a really good pit selection for Sunday and more importantly, gives us the track position right off the bat.
“And we know the 78 car is going to be fast, they always are, and one of the guys we’re going to have to race again. There’s going to be many others that are starting farther back that we’ll be racing against too, I’m sure, before the end of the day. We’ll work on our Pedigree Camry tomorrow in practice and make sure we get a good race setup underneath it so we can hopefully stay up front.”
The third-place qualifying effort is a career best for Suarez and his third top-10 start this season.
Kyle Larson, who was fastest in Friday’s only practice session, qualified fifth at 158.179 mph. Rounding out the top 10 were Kurt Busch (158.144 mph), Erik Jones (157.680 mph), Brad Keselowski (157.384 mph), Austin Dillon (157.109 mph), and Denny Hamlin (157.034 mph).
Ten-time Dover winner Jimmie Johnson will start 14th.
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