William Byron earns NASCAR Cup pole over Ryan Preece at Darlington

William Byron did well to honor Jeff Gordon in No. 24 “fiery” throwback scheme by rocketing to the top of the charts in qualifying on Saturday. Just over a tenth of a second separated the drivers between second and tenth on the time sheets, but second to first was nearly the same margin as Byron put down a new Darlington record for the current Gen-7 race car.

Byron lapped the historic track in 28.774s, beating RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece by 0.084s. This is Preece’s best qualifying effort at Darlington and just the fourth front row start of his entire career.

For Byron, this is his 15th career pole and his second of the 2025 season. And despite besting the field by a clear margin, the HMS driver claims it could have been even better.

William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

“The lap — I felt like (Turns) 1 and 2 were really good,” said Byron. “I felt like I gave up a little bit in (Turn) 4. You can kind of see that on the tracker, which was good enough to get through there. Through the middle of (Turns) 3 and 4 was also pretty decent. Just proud of that. To get a pole here is great … we usually run really well, so we just got to put it together tomorrow.”

Denny Hamlin, who won last weekend in dominant fashion at Martinsville, qualified third on the grid and led the way for the Toyotas. Fellow Toyota drivers Chase Briscoe and Bubba Wallace qualified fourth and fifth, respectively. Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, and Michael McDowell rounded out the top ten.

Big names deep in the field

The session was clean, despite a few drivers collecting their ‘Darlington stripes’ after getting up against the outside wall. Of note, both Daniel Suarez and Alex Bowman saw their lap times fall away after getting a bit too high in the corner. Both will start deep in the field with Suarez 30th and Bowman 33rd.

They are not alone when it comes to notable names with some work to do on Sunday. While Byron earned pole position, his highest-qualifying teammate was Chase Elliott in 15th while Kyle Larson was 19th.

Christopher Bell, who some thought would be a threat for pole, only managed 17th while reigning Cup Series champion Joey Logano was 18th.

Brad Keselowski won this race one year ago but clocked in 20th after his run. Then there’s Ross Chastain who was the best of the three Trackhouse drivers, but still only 25th on the grid.