Hendrick Motorsports Sweeps Daytona 500 Front Row

Hendrick Motorsports made history on Sunday, not only winning their record-setting 5th straight Daytona 500 Pole Award, but by sweeping the Top-4 qualifying spots. Think about that for a moment. The slowest Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was still faster than any other team in the Cup garage. The feat by Hendrick Motorsports also marks the 700th pole for Chevrolet, including the 7th straight in the Daytona 500. Perhaps even more impressive is that the streak of 5 Daytona 500 Poles was done with 4 drivers and 3 teams.

2015: #24 Jeff Gordon / Crew Chief: Alan Gustafson
2016: #24 Chase Elliott / Alan Gustafson
2017: #24 Chase Elliott / Alan Gustafson
2018: #88 Alex Bowman / Greg Ives
2019: #24 William Byron / Chad Knaus

It was 2018 Rookie of the Year William Byron that got the job done for Mr. H with his new crew chief Chad Knaus, beating out teammate and last year’s Daytona 500 polesitter, Alex Bowman.  It was Byron’s first career Pole Award. Byron and Bowman are the only two drivers that know where they will be starting in the field for next week’s race, and together they make the youngest front row in Daytona 500 history. Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott were 3rd and 4th fastest, respectively, but will have to race in the Duels on Thursday night to determine where they’ll start the 500.

Hendrick Motorsports wasn’t the only organization celebrating today, either. The #31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and their alliance team, the #27 Germain Racing Chevrolet, were the 2 fastest unchartered cars. That means that no matter what transpires in Thursday night’s Duels, Tyler Reddick will make his Cup Series debut in the #31 and Casey Mears will make his return for the first time since 2016 in the #27. That means that Ryan Truex, Brendan Gaughan, Parker Kligerman, and Joey Gase, must race their way into the Daytona 500 through the Duels.

The cars are all now impounded and will not hit the track for Thursday night’s Duels starting at 7:00pm ET and aired on FS1.

Below are the qualifying results and later we’ll post the Duel starting lineups when they’re available.
(i) – ineligible for Cup Points
* – unchartered