Mexico City pole to van Gisbergen in rain-shortened qualifying

Shane van Gisbergen will lead the NASCAR Cup Series field to the green flag in the inaugural event in Mexico City.

The New Zealander had set the fastest lap at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez when NASCAR deemed the session official because of rain. The pole-winning lap was 93.904 mph (1m32.776s).

“That’s awesome,” van Gisbergen said. “What a really cool achievement for us and a great starting spot for tomorrow. I’m excited. That’s really cool.”

The pole is the second for van Gisbergen in his career. He is 33rd in the point standings and earned his first, and so far, only, Cup Series victory in the inaugural event at the Chicago street course.

“We made some big swings last night,” van Gisbergen said. “The Safety Culture car was a bit better, a lot more front grip, which is what I needed. But my laps were average. You’ll see everyone is beating me on the first half of the lap and then my lap gets good at the end. I went for another lap, and was on a ripper, and mucked it up. We’ve got a lot of speed today, which is good; it’s been a great improvement. But we’ll see what happens with the weather and see where we end up, but a really good starting point.”

Ryan Preece qualified second with a lap at 93.839 mph.

Ross Chastain qualified third (93.830 mph), Ty Gibbs qualified fourth (93.757 mph), and Michael McDowell qualified fifth (93.704 mph). Kyle Larson qualified sixth (93.694 mph), Todd Gilliland qualified seventh (93.657 mph), AJ Allmendinger qualified eighth (93.655 mph), and Joey Logano qualified ninth (93.628 mph).

Daniel Suarez, the local hero, rounded out the top 10. Suarez qualified at 93.616 mph.

Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott just missed the top 10. Busch and Elliott qualified 11th and 12th respectively.

Cup Series point leader William Byron qualified 27th. Christopher Bell, who won the most recent Cup Series road course race at Circuit of the Americas, qualified 31st.

Ryan Truex qualified 36th for Joe Gibbs Racing as he drives Denny Hamlin’s car this weekend. Katherine Legge qualified last, 37th.

RESULTS

UP NEXT: Cup Series race in Mexico City at 3pm ET Sunday.