Chase Briscoe wins second straight pole, full Cup Series qualifying results from Nashville

A battle of the Toyotas! Chase Briscoe beats out Denny Hamlin for his second straight pole award in the NASCAR Cup Series. Last week for the Coca-Cola 600, Briscoe put down a fast lap. This week, he backs it up. James Small must be doing something right.

Chase Briscoe has momentum going for him right now. To win two straight pole awards is a big deal. This 19-team is starting to get more comfortable with one another, and that will only be dangerous for the rest of the field.

Coming into Nashville, Briscoe has three top-five finishes in his last five starts. It feels like this team is building up to its first win of the season. Briscoe was in the mix late last year before the race fell apart in those last few overtimes. Will he finish it out this time around?

Check out the full starting lineup. Denny Hamlin is on the outside pole. William Byron, Tyler Reddick, and Ross Chastain round out the top five.

Chase Briscoe on pole for the third time this season, second week in a row. Full starting lineup for Nashville tomorrow night: pic.twitter.com/qBecPIYUks

— Jonathan Howard (@Jondean25) May 31, 2025

The thing that jumps off the page at me is Brad Keselowski. What a great run for that No. 6 team to qualify P6. They were really desperate for speed on Saturday, and now that they have it, they have to take that to Sunday. Michael McDowell also had a great run as he qualified P8 as the top Spire Motorsports driver.

Last year, the race at Nashville was wild. It was so wild, in fact, that we can’t possibly expect it to be the same this time around. Five overtimes with a lot of incidents that were entirely preventable. Maybe it was the intense heat from a year ago that made everyone lose their minds on the track. This year, that heat won’t be nearly as oppressive.

Chase Briscoe leading the Cup Series in pole awards

This weekend marks the first race of the second half of the regular season. Already, Chase Briscoe has three pole awards, more than any other driver in the Cup Series. The move to Joe Gibbs Racing is really starting to pay off, and you can see it in performances like today.

I think that it is notable that we saw speed out of 23XI and JGR again this weekend. They had taken a bit of a step down on these intermediate tracks recently. That doesn’t appear to be the case this weekend in Nashville. Maybe there’s a bit of Music City Magic in those Toyotas?

Denny Hamlin qualified P2, but he might not race on Sunday. His fiancée is expected to give birth any day now, and Ryan Truex is on standby as a backup for Hamlin in case the baby boy arrives tomorrow.