Chase Briscoe wins pole for Chase race at Talladega

Chase Briscoe won the Busch Light Pole Award in Saturday's qualifying session for the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Briscoe set the fastest average lap speed at 186.065 mph, besting Austin Hill (185.949 mph) by just 0.032 seconds and will lead the field to the green flag on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, NBC, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Trackhouse Racing teammates Connor Zilisch (185.877 mph) and Shane van Gisbergen (185.707 mph) qualified third and fourth, respectively, with Chris Buescher fifth at 185.607 mph. MORE: Starting lineup | At-track photos: Talladega Sunday's race marks the seventh race of The Chase presented by Mobil 1 as the hunt for the NASCAR Cup Series championship whittles down to the final three races. Christopher Bell (185.549 mph), Alex Bowman (185.506 mph), Ty Gibbs (185.301 mph), Denny Hamlin (185.101 mph) and series points leader Kyle Larson (184.822 mph) completed the top 10 in qualifying. Ten of the 16 Chase drivers will start outside the top 10, with some faring fine and others slated for an uphill climb. The best of those was Spire Motorsports' Daniel Suárez, wo will start 13th. Three-time Cup champion and three-time Talladega winner Joey Logano will start 16th, ahead of fellow Chase competitors William Byron (17th), Chase Elliott (18th) and Ryan Preece (19th). Bubba Wallace will start 25th ahead of Carson Hocevar (26th), Ryan Blaney (27th) and Austin Cindric (28th). Tyler Reddick, winner of last week's race at Phoenix Raceway, was the slowest qualifier of those in The Chase and will start 33rd in the 40-car field on Sunday. Larson enters with a five-point lead in The Chase over Bell. Briscoe (minus-24), Hamlin (minus-31), Blaney (minus-40), Logano (minus-44) and Reddick (minus-56) each enter in the thick of the championship hunt with three races remaining. This story will be updated.