INDIANAPOLIS — Daniel Suarez picked a good time for his third career NASCAR Cup Series pole. The Trackhouse Racing driver circled the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course with a time of 1:27-968-seconds en route to the Verizon 200 pole on Sunday.

Suarez hasn’t started in the top 10 since Chicago street race (5th) and now picks up some much needed track position to try and get himself back on the positive side of the cutline, if not picking up his second career win to stamp his name into the postseason on Sunday.

The pole sitter won this race a year ago while the race winner on road courses this season has started 2nd, 8th, 3rd respectively.

Suarez beat last year’s pole sitter and race winner, Tyler Reddick. The 23XI Racing driver now has 5 front row starting spots in the last 9 starts on the season. He led 38 laps en route to last year’s win.

Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five of the starting lineup.

This is just the second top five starting spot for Elliott all season.

Shane Van Gisbergen was once again impressive in making the final round of qualifying. He went 1:28.404-seconds in Group B which narrowly bested Supercars friend Brody Kostecki by just .91-sec to the final round. He will start 8th.

Kamui Kobayashi (1:29-077-seconds), Jenson Button (1:29.269-seconds) and Mike Rockenfeller (1:29.819-seconds) didn’t get out of the first round in Group A and will start 28th, 31sst and 37th respectively.

Denny Hamlin had won the last two Cup Series poles on road courses but will roll off ?? on Sunday. He started 14th and 15th respectively prior here too.

William Byron will start last due to failing pre qualifying inspection three times on Friday which not only negated him from running a lap in qualifying, he’ll also have to do a drive through penalty at the start of Sunday’s race as well.

Verizon 200 Starting Lineup

Row 1: Daniel Suarez, Tyler Reddick

Row 2: Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell

Row 3: Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson

Row 4: Christopher Bell, Shane Van Gisbergen R

Row 5: Alex Bowman, Ty Gibbs R

Row 6: Brody Kostecki R, Martin Truex Jr.

Row 7: Chase Briscoe, Corey LaJoie

Row 8: Justin Haley, Ryan Blaney

Row 9: Chris Buescher, Joey Logano

Row 10: Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric

Row 11: Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski

Row 12: Todd Gilliland, Harrison Burton

Row 13: Denny Hamlin, AJ Allmendinger

Row 14: Austin Dillon, Kamui Kobayashi R

Row 15: Andy Lally, Ryan Preece

Row 16: Jenson Button, Josh Bilicki

Row 17: Aric Almirola, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Row 18: Ty Dillon, Erik Jones

Row 19: Mike Rockenfeller R, Kevin Harvick

Row 20: William Byron