PHOENIX, Ariz. — Team Penske’s Joey Logano claimed his first pole position of the 2026 season Saturday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway — setting a fast lap of 135.537 mph around the one-mile oval that will host Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The fast lap gives the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang his 38th career pole position. The three-time NASCAR Cup Series champ will share the front row with two-time and reigning series champion Kyle Larson, who was a slight .017-second slower in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
It was a strong Penske showing for the team, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary racing season. Logano’s teammates Austin Cindric (third) and last November’s Phoenix race winner Ryan Blaney (fifth) also earned top-five starting positions.
“All three Penske cars are fast,” said Logano, who reminded that it was a Penske Phoenix pole sweep with IndyCar teammate David Malukus claiming pole position for Saturday’s IndyCar race. In fact, all three Penske IndyCar drivers — also Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden — will be on the team’s NASCAR drivers’ pit boxes Sunday.
“Our three cars and the three IndyCars all looked solid in practice yesterday. Now it’s just time to execute the race, which is the hard part.
“You never know anymore (if you will win pole position),” Logano added. “When you have a longer practice like we used to have and put a fresh set of tires on and make a mock run and see the pace. But these days you don’t know. You just go out there and go as fast as you can and you don’t know if you’ll be 30th or first. It’s hard to say before the run starts.
“I felt like if I didn’t screw up the speed was in the car and I just had to make sure I got all of it out. The speed is there for the Penske cars right now.”
Championship points leader Tyler Reddick spun his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota in practice but didn’t hit anything — recovering to post a solid eighth-place position in the qualifying session minutes later. Brad Keselowski had a more extreme experience, hitting the wall with his No. 6 Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford — unable to qualify and forced to start from the rear of the 37-car field.
Defending race winner Christopher Bell qualified 12th in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Anthony Alfredo, who is driving the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet this week for Alex Bowman, qualified 31st. However, he did post the best 10-lap speed average among the four Hendrick drivers in practice.
Of note, Spire Motorsports teammates Daniel Suarez (No. 7 Chevrolet) and Carson Hocevar (No. 77 Chevrolet) were fastest in practice. They will roll off fourth and seventh, respectively on Sunday.
REDDICK GOES FOR FOUR IN A ROW
23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick grinned and immediately conceded life is happily hectic these days as the superstar face of NASCAR. Making history by winning the first three races of the 2026 season, Reddick has earned the glory. Now he’s learning to balance the extra demands his excellence has created with the desire to keep the winning rolling on.
In many ways, the success doesn’t make things easier — it creates new expectations and attention. But it’s certainly the better option. He holds a 70-point advantage atop the championship standings. A victory in Sunday’s race would mark his first on the one-mile Phoenix oval and with only a pair of top-five finishes (both third place efforts) in 12 previous series races here, it would be a huge sign of achievement. And carrying on with all the good vibes.
“We’re excited we’ve won three races but we’re not satisfied, we’re still hungry,” said Reddick, who drives the No. 45 23XI Toyota for the 23XI Racing team co-owned by legendary NBA star Michael Jordan and fellow competitor Denny Hamlin.
“I don’t feel like a superhero,” he said laughing at a reporter’s suggestion. “For me, it’s just like we’re doing the right things. We’re taking a realistic approach to it, there’s thought to it. This is what can happen when we prepare really good race cars and show up to the race track close, qualify good and run good, we really set ourselves up for success.
“We had that stretch there where we were ‘right there’ and it didn’t happen last year. But I feel like it’s rewarding for everyone on this 23XI team for it to be happening for the 45 the way it has this year. Everyone has worked hard to get over the hump. We’re definitely not settling in and happy, ‘we won three races and we’re good now.’ Everyone is very, very eager to carry this on.”
HAMLIN’S RETURN
Denny Hamlin managed a smile but conceded returning to the Phoenix miler still stung a bit for the veteran, who dominated the November NASCAR Cup Series championship race here — leading 208 of the 319 laps — only to miss out on the title after a strategy call didn’t pan out on an overtime restart.
The 45-year-old 60-race winner returns to Phoenix ranked 23rd in the standings and will start his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota 11th on the grid for Sunday’s race.
“I’m still angry at the track a little bit,” said Hamlin, who had looked to have finally claimed the first championship of his highly-decorated two-decade career. “But the track doesn’t have a soul so it can’t feel the things I feel.
“You’ve still got to come in here and start the whole process over again and do all the right things and see where the result pans out this time. Haven’t had a whole lot of races since we were here for the championship, so just trying to get acclimated with where we are at this point and seeing if we can we replicate some of the magic we had.”
SVG IS GTG
During his 2025 NASCAR Cup Series rookie season New Zealand racing champion Shane Van Gisbergen won five races — all on road courses — and qualified for the Playoffs. But even throughout all that success the former Australian Supercars Series champion always spoke about his desire to up his oval-racing game. He came into his sophomore season having scored only one top-10 on an ovals (10th-place at Kansas).
In only three races this season the 36-year-old driver of the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet has already answered that with a career best sixth-place showing on the Atlanta high-banks two weeks ago and strong work at the DAYTONA 500 season opener. That combined with a reliable strong run on the Austin road course last Sunday (runner-up) has Van Gisbergen the highest in the championship standings (fifth place) he’s ever been this early in the season.
“This race last year we were at a completely different end of the garage,” Van Gisbergen said with a smile, noting the change in championship order. “The guys enjoy it much more being early in tech and it would be amazing to stay up here. But there’s a long way to go and we really need to just keep having good run, be consistent and score points. Certainly, very encouraging and a cool spot to be in.
“I think it’s been an awesome progression and I feel like we are getting better and learning a lot. It’s good going through two races of data from the same track and coming up with a trend of what we need. That’s been awesome and hopefully we keep showing that progress.”
CHEVROLET’S BIG WEEKEND
Chevrolet has taken the expression “cross-over” to a new extreme in this racing quadruple-header weekend in the desert featuring races in the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, the NTT IndyCar Series and the ARCA Menards Series.
There are a combined 75 drivers entered in the four events — 18 in the NASCAR Cup Series, 30 in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, 12 in the IndyCar Series and 15 in the ARCA Menard Series race. Phoenix Raceway is the site of Chevrolet’s first oval win in IndyCar in 1969.
“Chevrolet is proud to be the only manufacturer powering the field across all races this weekend,” said Jim Campbell, Vice President, Performance and Motorsports Commercial Operations, General Motors. “Our heritage has been built on both stock car and open-wheel competition, and Phoenix Raceway is a great example of that legacy.”
–Field Level Media
