But Logano didn’t think he had a pole-winning lap when he ran it.
“It went slower than the run before (in the opening round),” he said. “It seemed like tire falloff was a real thing. I kind of got done with my lap and was like, ‘Eh.’ I thought it was going to be like third or fourth probably, just not as good as what it was the first run.
“I overcompensated some of the adjustments I wanted to make as a driver and probably didn’t adjust the car enough as much as we needed to for some other things, but I guess everybody’s tires fell off, and that was a better lap than I thought it was.”
2020 Cup champion and Championship 4 competitor Chase Elliott qualified fifth with a 133.437 mph lap around the one-mile Arizona track. Fellow Championship 4 competitors didn't fare so well as Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain struggled on their qualifying runs Saturday afternoon and couldn't find their way into the pole round. Instead, both will have a lot of work to do to navigate their way to the front as Bell will start 17th while Chastain starts well outside the top 20 in 25th. “I was too loose on the throttle,” said Chastain, who was fastest in Friday’s practice but out of balance in qualifying trim. “It’s a great thing for (Sunday) but not good right now.” Ryan Blaney will join his Team Penske teammate on the front row. Chase Briscoe and Kyle Larson will roll off third and fourth, respectively. Larson, the 2021 Cup champion, is still eligible for the 2022 owners' championship on Sunday. Harrison Burton, Kevin Harvick, William Byron, Cole Custer and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top 10 in qualifying. After a five-race absence following his injury at Texas Motor Speedway, Alex Bowman returned to the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and qualified his hot rod in 24th.“There’s a lot of really smart people at HMS that evaluated everything and tried to make everything the best it can be," Bowman said.
“I think having a goal to come back this year kept me working really hard and really accountable for what I was doing. I think if we would have said, ‘We’re going to take the rest of the year off,’ it would have been way easier to just sit back on my butt and not work as hard.”
Making his final start with Joe Gibbs Racing, two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch will start 22nd in his No. 18 Toyota. The NASCAR Wire Service contributed to this report. [pickup_prop id="29308"]