Last spring at Kansas, it was Kyle Larson versus Chris Buescher for the race win in the closest photo finish the Cup Series has ever seen. This weekend, it was the same two drivers again in the fight for pole, but it wasn’t quite as close. This is Larson’s 22nd career pole, but his first of the 2025 season and his first at Kansas as well.

“Pretty ironic to have us both on the front row here after our close finish a year ago,” smiled Larson. “It’s cool to finally get a pole here at Kansas too. I feel like I’ve been just short a number of times and I hope they still give out that pedal car (for pole) because that’s what I’ve always wanted. Especially with having some kids so I hope that’s still a thing. Just proud of our team … thanks to Chevy, the engine shop, everybody. So yeah, off to a good start.”

On his expectations for tomorrow, Larson said: ‘It seems like the pace is a lot faster throughout the run. Just in qualifying, we’re three-quarters of a second faster than we were here in the fall with similar track conditions and temps. So yeah, the tires and the cars and the setups have all gotten better. I think it’s going to be a fast-paced race, but I know our car is always good on mile-and-a-halfs. Just try to do a good job and execute on pit road and give ourselves late in the race like we did last year.”

Kyle Larson, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

Buescher had pole, until the very last driver rolled off pit road — with Larson then eclipsing him by 0.056s, lapping the 1.5-miler in 29.391 seconds. Buescher has just five front row starts in his entire Cup career, and none since Texas in September, 2023.

“We could have manufactured a better story if we tried, could we? That was a really awesome lap for this Ford Mustang,” said Buescher. “I’m proud of this group. Practice was really solid and Texas last week was awesome so we came into here with a lot of high hopes and it’s really showing up already. Missed it by that much, but we’re in a good spot and that will put us in clean air for the start of this race at a track we’ve been really good at.”

Behind the front row, Christopher Bell led the Toyotas in third, Tyler Reddick was fourth, and Joey Logano was fifth. Ty Gibbs, William Byron, Daniel Suarez, Chase Elliott, and Ryan Blaney filled out the remainder of the top ten.

Two drivers found the wall during the qualifying session, which proved costly. Josh Berry was the first to slide up into the wall, leaving him as the slowest of the 38 qualifiers. Kyle Busch got into fairly hard as well in Turns 3 and 4, qualifying 35th.

Some other notables starting deeper in the field: Denny Hamlin in 14th, Bubba Wallace 15th, Chase Briscoe 19th, Alex Bowman 21st, Ross Chastain 26th, and Brad Keselowski 36th.

Five drivers suffered tire failures due to low air pressures in practice, but this was not an issue that continued into qualifying.

Photos from Kansas – Practice & Qualifying

Kyle Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Camaro ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ practice and qualifying session at Kansas Speedway.

Media Availability Quotes:

What are you looking to learn when you get done with the practice session? What would make it a good session for you and your guys?

“Yeah, I think for Kansas, and every track really, you kind of just want to have that short run speed. So you want to be up there on the charts a little bit, but also kind of have good long run speed and a good balance throughout the run. This place can get kind of tricky off of turn two or off of turn four, so you hope that your car is kind of finishing the corner well at those ends so you can do a good job of staying wound up with your speed. I feel like some drivers can run the middle of three and four pretty well, so hopefully my car will operate off of the top lane decently. So yeah, I think we’ll be in a good spot. It’s just trying to get a little bit better every time.”

I feel like we’ve talked about this the last couple of years when we’ve come to Kansas, but the quality of racing here is really widely praised. What is it from your perspective on the racetrack that allows this place to produce that kind of racing? And do you have as much fun on the track as it seems like fans have watching this place?

“Yeah, I enjoy Kansas a lot. It’s probably my third favorite track behind Homestead and Bristol. I just think what makes any track good is progressive banking, and this place has that.

You look at Homestead, it has it. Bristol fans hate it, but it’s got progressive banking. I feel like when you have progressive banking, it just allows more options, I think. So yeah, I think that’s why it helps the racing here because you can catch somebody and move to a different lane; get inside of them, work them over and pass them. Where you go to other tracks and do all this work to get to them, and they’re still running the same line that you have to run, and you can’t pass. So yeah, I think the progressive banking helps out a lot of these tracks.”

Obviously when we think of the championship moving to Homestead, we think of you and Tyler Reddick being pretty happy about that, but what is your reaction to that, and what is your reaction to the championship rotation in general?

“Yeah, I think ultimately I’m just happy to hear that it is going to rotate, I guess. Did they announce what tracks it’s rotating through? I imagine Phoenix, Vegas, Homestead, probably.

But yeah, I don’t know. Everybody’s good everywhere, so it doesn’t matter a whole lot. But yeah, my past history would say that I would be a lot better at Homestead than Phoenix, so I like that. But still you have to get there, and that’s really challenging to do in our format. We’ll see. And there’s other guys that are just as good or better than me at Homestead. I feel like (Ryan) Blaney’s quietly extremely good, as he is at Phoenix. At Homestead and Vegas, if he could ever get through practice, he’d probably be dominant there, too.

It’s cool that they’re rotating it.”

What about here? Would you like to see this as a championship track?

“I would love to see this place host a championship race. But yeah, you don’t really know what to expect, I would think, in November. You might have beautiful weather, or it could be freezing or snowing or whatever. I think it probably needs to stay at tracks where you can count on the weather being favorable. So yeah, I don’t know. Just with a big weekend like that, you wouldn’t want any delays.”

Was last night’s wreck any scarier or anything from other sprint car wrecks? It just looked a little strange…

“Yeah, I mean, it’s just part of racing. They got together, and I was already committed to the top and kind of had nowhere to go. Thankfully, everything held up right, and nothing got in the cockpit or anything like that.”

Do you even let yourself start to get excited about Indianapolis yet, or does that just start on Tuesday? “Yeah, I think it starts Sunday night after the race here. I really haven’t thought about it much at all. I’ve just been kind of excited about these upcoming races and tracks that we can run good at. I think once the checkered flag flies here at Kansas, I’ll get excited about Indy because I’ll be heading to Indy.

And I know I have the sprint car race on Monday, but I think still just being in Indianapolis, you think about the IndyCar, so I’ll be ready for it then.”

How much do drivers pay attention to the criticism about the Next Gen car and the racing that it does at certain tracks?

“I don’t know. I would say everybody’s probably different in what they’ve got going on in their weeks. I don’t read the media a whole lot, but I would say us drivers were part of the controversy because we were complaining about it just as much as everybody else.

I don’t know… it’s weird. Racing could totally flip this weekend. We could have the next three to five races be really exciting, and everybody’s forgotten about the boring races we’ve had before then. I’m not sure, but I think we all would love to see better racing at every track and all that. We’re all greedy people. We’re humans. But yeah, just finding that solution, I think, is always tough.”

You kind of touched on it earlier about Indianapolis next week, and I know you’re focused on this weekend, but could you just walk us through the preparations that you go through for each race? Just talk about how you balance it all out..

“Yeah, it’s been a bit busy for me here throughout this season just with a lot of the racing I’ve done and all that. And everybody preps a little differently. I feel like with our 5 team, we do a good job with our prep and being pretty into our procedure and how we do things.

When I run a one-off Xfinity race, I don’t look at any data necessarily, but you try to watch some film. And usually the tracks I’m going to are tracks I’m familiar with and have a good understanding of what it takes, feel-wise, in the car or lines and stuff. So it doesn’t make the studying super in-depth.

And then yeah, with Indy, I haven’t done a whole lot, but there’s not really much you can do studying-wise. You can watch film, which I will, and all that. But yeah, I think for Indy, you have a lot of time, really. So I think once you get in the car and kind of get an understanding of your balance of your car, then you can really kind of pick apart studying; where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, how to make all that better and be better prepared for the race.”

So what do you feel like will be the biggest gain this year in the Indianapolis 500 that you have learned from last year?

“I’m not sure. I think our car was really good last year. I felt like the race was going really smooth up until we had the brake issue and sped on pit road. So I’m not sure. I felt really prepared last year, and I would say come race time this year, if our balance is good, I’ll feel prepared again. So there wasn’t really anything too surprising, I thought, last year.”

Kyle, there was a graphic earlier in the week that showed you’ve led 1,395 laps on 1.5 mile tracks in the Next Gen car, which is more than double the second place. Is it just simply a matter of your team through setups that have allowed you guys to be as dominant as you guys are on these types of tracks, or are there other factors at play?

“I think everything factors in… car, team, driver. I’ve always excelled at mile-and-a-halves. It kind of really feels similar to winged sprint car racing to me. And then, yeah, I mean, when the Next Gen car, you can kind of — when you’re in the lead, it’s hard to pass somebody, especially when they’re doing a good job at defending. So I feel like I’ve led enough laps, I’ve gotten better at defending. All those laps I’ve led, I’ve not been the best car at every single lap, but I’ve done a good job of blocking or just making things difficult on guys behind me.

But to get to the lead – yes, it takes a good driver, good car, good pit stops, good restarts, like everything factors into it. It is a cool stat to see that we’ve led that much, and hopefully we can continue to grow it, but also grow it on other style tracks.”

There’s been talk about a horsepower increase of 750, and recently Tony Stewart has had some blaring comments on the current state of decision-making in the sport and overall how the Cup car is. If you’re aware of those comments and what he said, how much do you agree with Tony’s statement, and or what would be the one thing you’d change on the current generation of car?

“Yeah, I didn’t see anything that he said, so I’m not really sure. But I don’t know… I think we would be all for trying something new. I don’t know if it’s going to change the racing drastically or anything. It’s a decent size increase, but it’s not massive.

I don’t know… I’d be open for it. I know we all are. I think it’s gotten a little bit stale.. the racing obviously, the product and all that. So I think we’re in need of a change, a drastic change, to try and help. But yeah, I don’t know, I think it would help. It would be a good to start there.”

GM PR

NASCAR starting positions for Kansas Speedway

Tomorrow, the NASCAR Cup Series takes the green flag in Kansas City, KS. Now, the field is rolling to the 1.5-mile of Kansas Speedway for a round of practice and qualifying.

View the Kansas starting lineup for the NASCAR Cup Series below.

Kansas Menu
ARCA: Prac/Qual | Race
Truck: Prac/Qual | Race
Cup: Prac/Qual | Race

Kansas TV Schedule

Kyle Larson and Zane Smith brush the wall in practice. Ty Gibbs tops the times sheet in combined practice results with a 29.976.

Josh Berry tags the wall on his qualifying lap. Kyle Busch rode the wall significantly on his lap as well.

Kyle Larson will start from the pole position in Sunday’s race. He turned a laptime at 29.391 seconds in NASCAR qualifying at Kansas Speedway!

Kansas Speedway
Starting Lineup
May 10, 2025
NASCAR Cup Series

Pos | Driver

1. Kyle Larson
29.391

2. Chris Buescher
29.448

3. Christopher Bell
29.465

4. Tyler Reddick
29.484

5. Joey Logano
29.528

6. Ty Gibbs
29.551

7. William Byron
29.569

8. Daniel Suarez
29.593

9. Chase Elliott
29.595

10. Ryan Blaney
29.596

11. Michael McDowell
29.613

12. Justin Haley
29.625

13. Austin Cindric
29.627

14. Denny Hamlin
29.633

15. Bubba Wallace
29.634

16. Erik Jones
29.670

17. John Hunter Nemechek
29.674

18. Zane Smith
29.682

19. Chase Briscoe
29.684

20. Austin Dillon
29.705

21. Alex Bowman
29.716

22. Carson Hocevar
29.793

23. Todd Gilliland
29.825

24. Noah Gragson
29.840

25. Riley Herbst
29.846

26. Ross Chastain
29.847

27. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
29.851

28. Corey Heim
39.899

29. Ty Dillon
29.974

30. Ryan Preece
30.016

31. Cole Custer
30.016

32. Jesse Love
30.070

33. AJ Allmendinger
30.160

34. Shane van Gisbergen
30.213

35. Kyle Busch
30.284

36. Brad Keselowski
30.602

37. Cody Ware
31.152

38. Josh Berry
31.406

NASCAR Inspection Issues: Kansas Speedway (May 2025)

Kansas Speedway
Practice Results
May 10, 2025
NASCAR Cup Series

Pos | Driver

1. Ty Gibbs
29.976

2. Michael McDowell
30.091

3. Alex Bowman
30.104

4. Bubba Wallace
30.110

5. William Byron
30.114

6. Tyler Reddick
30.140

7. Josh Berry
30.191

8. Austin Cindric
30.225

9. Kyle Larson
30.228

10. Ross Chastain
30.239

11. Justin Haley
30.260

12. John Hunter Nemechek
30.280

13. Chris Buescher
30.284

14. Christopher Bell
30.303

15. Jesse Love
30.308

16. Chase Elliott
30.322

17. Brad Keselowski
30.333

18. Carson Hocevar
30.338

19. Ty Dillon
30.363

20. Austin Dillon
30.365

21. Ryan Blaney
30.368

22. Kyle Busch
30.372

23. Todd Gilliland
30.384

24. Daniel Suarez
30.390

25. Denny Hamlin
30.424

26. Riley Herbst
30.430

27. Corey Heim
30.437

28. Joey Logano
30.489

29. Zane Smith
30.504

30. Ricky Stenhouse Jr
30.532

31. Chase Briscoe
30.560

32. Cody Ware
30.560

33. Cole Custer
30.600

34. Noah Gragson
30.609

35. Ryan Preece
30.620

36. Shane Van Gisbergen
30.636

37. Erik Jones
30.682

38. AJ Allmendinger
30.852

Links

Kansas Speedway | NASCAR

Corey Heim didn’t have sole discretion in picking the race track for his first NASCAR Cup Series start of the season, but no doubt his choice would have been the same.

Kansas Speedway is Heim’s favorite track, and he’s primed for Sunday’s Advent Health 400 at the 1.5-mile intermediate speedway (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I don’t think I really had a pick for my races for this year, but I was able to sit down with 23XI Racing and kind of discuss what makes sense,” said Heim, who will drive the No. 67 23XI Racing Toyota on Sunday. “With this being my opening Cup race on the 2025 campaign for myself, being able to run it in 2024 was a big reason why I was able to knock the rust off a little bit.

“The last time I raced a Cup car was pretty close to a year ago—I think it was in June of last year (June 30 at Nashville Superspeedway). It was probably important for me to come out and not look like a fish out of water the first time back and be able to lean on some prior experience and come back to Kansas. I had a little bit of say myself, but I think it just made sense on both sides.”

Heim was pressed into service last year as a substitute for LEGACY Motor Club driver Erik Jones, who suffered a compression fracture at Talladega Superspeedway. He made his Cup debut at Dover, followed by races at Kansas (still subbing for Jones) and Nashville (for 23XI).

Heim swept the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series races at Kansas Speedway last year, making the track the logical choice for his first Cup race of 2025.

“I think I feel really comfortable when I come here, and I think that is just the prior experience I had here,” Heim said. “I’ve got probably six or more ARCA races here (with two wins and five top fives) and six or more Truck races here. Just that experience alone makes me feel comfortable and very prepared coming into this race. I feel like there are not so many things that I’m having to soak up during the week and prepare on, like, for instance, Dover last year—my first Cup race ever.

“I had been there once in an ARCA car, I think, before that race—just the extra stress it took to prepare for that race and be ready before, and all of those things that I was learning about the race track, added on to being in a Cup car for the first time, was really tough. Kansas is a place that I have a lot of laps, and I think that helps with my comfort.”

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — If Chris Buescher weren’t tired of Kyle Larson after last year’s record-close finish at Kansas Speedway, he certainly should be after Saturday’s qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track.

Running what he called “a perfect-feeling lap,” Larson — the last driver to make a run during time trials — knocked Buescher off the provisional pole for Sunday’s Advent Health 400 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Larson scorched the intermediate speedway with a lap at 183.730 mph (29.391 seconds), beating Buescher (183.374 mph) for the top starting spot by 0.057 seconds. That was a much wider margin, relatively speaking, than the heartbreaking 0.001-second advantage Larson held over the Roush Fenway Keselowski driver at the end of last year’s spring race at Kansas.

The Busch Light Pole Award was Larson’s first of the season, his first at Kansas and the 22nd of his career. The pole is the 14th at Kansas for Chevrolet and the seventh this season for the auto maker.

“The qualifying lap felt really good,” Larson said. “You’re watching SMT (data), and you can see that drivers are starting to hold it easy wide open in (Turns) 1 and 2. In (Turns) 3 and 4, some guys were getting tight.

“Buescher was able to run a good 3 and 4. I kind of had a plan on the line I wanted to run and just try to match it with the throttle, and fortunately, everything went great. My balance felt really good, I felt like I hit my marks and came up to speed through 3 and 4 good, so it was a perfect-feeling lap.”

In last spring’s race, Larson surged forward at the finish to edge Buescher by less than 4 inches. That Buescher was again the victim of the speed in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was not lost on the pole winner.

“It’s definitely ironic and really cool,” Larson said. “I think it adds to the story line of what happened last year and probably builds anticipation for the race (on Sunday). I won’t be thinking about it, I guess, when we’re rolling around under caution, but, yeah, it’s ironic and funny and cool all at the same time.”

Christopher Bell (183.268 mph) was third-fastest in time trials, falling two positions short of his fourth straight Kansas Speedway pole.

Tyler Reddick qualified fourth at 183.150 mph, followed by last Sunday’s Texas winner Joey Logano at 182.871 mph.

Ty Gibbs, William Byron, Daniel Suarez, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney will start sixth through 10th, respectively.

Kyle Busch and Josh Berry both hit the outside wall during their qualifying laps and will start 35th and 38th in Sunday’s race.

–By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media.

NASCAR crew members ejected ahead of the race at Kansas Speedway

The NASCAR Cup Series is racing on the 1.5-mile of Kansas Speedway. Just ahead of practice and qualifying, NASCAR Cup Series teams rolled through the inspection line.

View NASCAR inspection issues from Kansas Speedway below.

Teams are required to pass multiple inspection points before cars are allowed onto the track to make sure the cars are in compliance with the rulebook. Teams that fail once suffer no penalties and simply must make adjustments and roll back through the line.

23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports each had a car fail inspection twice. The cars driven by Tyler Reddick and Todd Gilliland will lose a crew member of NASCAR’s choosing. They will also lose pit selection.

Both cars passed on their third attempt through the inspection line.

Qualifying is set to get underway in Kansas City, KS. The NASCAR Cup Series takes the green flag on Sunday for the race.

NASCAR lawsuit opened by 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports

NASCAR Inspection Penalties
Pre-Qualifying

1 Failure
No Penalty

2 Failures
Crew member of NASCAR’s choosing ejected. Additionally, the team loses pit selection.

3 Failures
Not permitted to qualify plus above penalty. They also have to serve a pass-through penalty at the start of the race.

Kansas TV Schedule

Links

Kansas Speedway | NASCAR