Blaney earns fourth career Cup Series pole at Pocono

Ryan Blaney will lead the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series to the green flag Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

Blaney posted a lap time of 50.877 seconds (176.897 mph) in the final round of qualifying Friday to secure his second series pole of 2018 and fourth of his career.

Other drivers who won four poles in their MENCS careers include Michael Waltrip, Rick Mast and James Hylton.

“We just kept getting better each round and everybody did a great job of realizing what we had to do to get better and pick out of spots where to get better and the car had the speed in it,” Blaney said. “We just needed to handle good and I needed to hit a good lap.”

Blaney, the defending winner of the June Pocono, race will start alongside the driver who finished runner up to him in the 2017 race: Kevin Harvick.

Rounding out the top-five qualifiers are Jamie McMurray, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch. McMurray posted his first top-five qualifying effort of 2018.

Live television coverage of the Pocono 400 will be on FOX Sports 1 Sunday at 2 p.m. Eastern.

STARTING LINEUP
1 Ryan Blaney
2 Kevin Harvick
3 Jamie McMurray
4 Martin Truex, Jr.
5 Kyle Busch
6 Kurt Busch
7 Joey Logano
8 Ryan Newman
9 Clint Bowyer
10 Denny Hamlin
11 Chase Elliott
12 Austin Dillon
13 Kyle Larson
14 Alex Bowman
15 Jimmie Johnson
16 William Byron
17 Brad Keselowski
18 Daniel Suarez
19 Darrell Wallace, Jr.
20 Paul Menard
21 David Ragan
22 Kasey Kahne
23 Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
24 A.J. Allmendinger
25 Erik Jones
26 Matt Kenseth
27 Chris Buescher
28 Cole Custer
29 Ty Dillon
30 Michael McDowell
31 Ross Chastain
32 Matt DiBenedetto
33 Landon Cassill
34 Aric Almirola
35 Cole Whitt
36 Gray Gaulding
37 J.J. Yeley
38 Derrike Cope

SOURCES
Racing-Reference.info