HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- The gauntlet is officially thrown down.

With a lap at 175.467 mph, Sprint Cup Series points leader Carl Edwards sent a message to rival Tony Stewart, one day before the two drivers will decide the series championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In Saturday's tension-filled qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track, Edwards won his third Coors Light pole award of the season and the 10th of his career. He'll start 14 positions ahead of Stewart, who trails Edwards by three points entering the season finale.

"Awesome, guys, that is the way to come and perform!" Edwards radioed to his crew after his qualifying laps. "Good work today."

Second fastest in Saturday's first practice session and quickest in the one that followed, Edwards was the next-to-last driver to qualify Saturday.

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"This is going really well so far, and hopefully this helps us all race," Edwards said. "We didn't need to qualify poorly here, [get] a poor pit stall, have some little thorn in our side the whole race. So hopefully this helps us through the whole event."

Martin Truex Jr. (174.808 mph) will start second in Sunday's race, followed by Kasey Kahne (174.582 mph), last week's winner at Phoenix.

The 34th of 48 drivers to make a qualifying attempt, Stewart was fifth fastest with 14 cars left.

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"Good job, buddy," he radioed to crew chief Darian Grubb after completing his lap.

Predictably, though, Stewart began to slide down the grid as qualifying progressed.

"We didn't have a pole-winning car today, but our No. 14 Chevrolet is pretty good in race trim," said Stewart, who ran 52 laps in Saturday's second practice session, focusing on race runs.

Stewart, who was 28th-fastest on his best lap in the second practice, said Saturday's speed chart won't be an accurate predictor of what will happen in Sunday's race. Neither will the respective qualifying position.

"I've won 13 poles in 13 years, and I've won [43] races now, proving that you don't have to do it from the pole, for sure," Stewart said. "It's definitely a luxury for him at this point, but don't start etching his name on the trophy yet."

After concentrating on race runs in Saturday's first practice, Edwards ran only three laps in the second session, all in qualifying trim.

"We ran the first practice completely in race trim, and we felt that was the best strategy for us," Edwards said. "We actually had a cut in the right rear tire after the first run in the second practice. So we had two sets of sticker [new] tires, which we would normally run three or four runs total -- a couple on the first set and one final sticker run -- but once we looked at that tire, we realized we couldn't use it again.

"In a way, it probably helped us from tuning the [car] out of contention."