HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Daniel Suarez showed more speed than any of his championship rivals in the NASCAR XFINITY Series on Saturday morning, capturing the pole for the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Suarez and his No. 19 ARRIS Toyota toured the 1.5-mile South Florida oval in 31.779 seconds (169.924 mph), topping a 45-car field and scoring his third pole of the season in the process.
The Monterrey, Mexico native led the final two knockout rounds and will now look to keep the rest of the Championship 4 in his rear-view mirror, as he chases his first-ever NASCAR national series crown.
“I just can’t explain in words how fun it is to work with all these (Joe Gibbs Racing) guys,” said Suarez after his sixth-career pole. “We just enjoy what we do a lot. We have fun. We’ve had pressure all year long … and yet, here we are, having fun and enjoying what we can do.”
“We have a shot to win this thing and that’s all we can ask. I’m confident with my long run speed … the car is fun to drive and I like that. We’ll see what happens.”
All four title contenders will start inside the top six, with Elliott Sadler rolling off alongside Suarez on the front row after qualifying second (31.812/169.747) in his No. 1 OneMain Financial Chevrolet.
Sadler is chasing his first NASCAR championship in Saturday afternoon’s race.
“I think that’s our best qualifying effort of the year,” the veteran smiled. “We can race them from there, and that’s what I told my team. This is a really good race car … we won with it at Darlington and we know we can win with it again. I’m just proud of all the guys at JR Motorsports. We’ve worked hard to get both my car and Justin’s (Allgaier) into contention and now it’s all about the race. We want to go out and earn it.”
Erik Jones’ No. 20 GameStop Toyota slotted in third-quick (31.850/169.545) in the final knockout round, with Jones hoping to back up his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title from a year ago with an XFINITY title Saturday.
“Man, I probably lost a solid tenth (of a second) through (turns three and four),” Jones admitted. “Just carried too much throttle on entry and overdrove it. I got through one and two good … and just gave it all away.”
“We got the car better through all three rounds, though, so that’s a positive. Third is a good starting spot and it’s better than I qualified here (at Homestead) last year, so we’ll race from there and focus on the three guys we’ve got to run with.”
Sprint Cup regulars Ryan Blaney and Austin Dillon completed the top five in qualifying, followed by Justin Allgaier, who was the slowest of the champinship contenders in the final round.
“This was actually successful for us, because we felt in practice that our short run speed wasn’t there, but our long run speed was comparable to most of the cars we felt we have to race against,” Allgaier explained. “I feel like we’ve got a great car for the race. It’s a good starting spot … Johnny Sauter was the slowest qualifier of the four guys in the Truck championship last night and he won it, so hopefully we can do the same thing this afternoon.”
Kyle Larson was seventh after sweeping both practice sessions on Friday and leading the opening round of qualifying, with Alex Bowman, Darrell Wallace Jr., Brandon Jones, Ty Dillon and Blake Koch making up the rest of the drivers who advanced through all three knockout rounds.
Ryan Reed was the first driver eliminated in round two, qualifying 13th for Roush Fenway Racing with a time of 32.311 seconds (167.126 mph).
Other notables knocked out in the first two rounds of qualifying included Brendan Gaughan (14th), Aric Almirola (15th), Cole Custer (18th), Jordan Anderson (22nd) and Ryan Preece (26th).
Matt Tifft, driving the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in hopes of scoring the owner’s championship, will start 39th after inspection issues prevented him from taking a lap in the opening 20-minute round.
“We just had trouble and just couldn’t get a part in the rear end to look exactly like NASCAR wanted,” said crew chief Chris Gayle. “It’s on me and my fault. We’ll move on. We’ll start in the back and still go out to try and win this owner’s championship for all of our sponsors.”
The Ford EcoBoost 300 kicks off at 3:30 p.m. ET, with live coverage on NBCSN, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.
