NASCAR Coke Zero Sugar 400 starting lineup: Chase Briscoe wins pole for the regular season finale at Daytona

Briscoe leads a strong showing for Ford with seven of their cars in the top 10 starting spots

By Steven Taranto

Aug 25, 2023 at 7:07 pm ET • 2 min read

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Chase Briscoe won the pole for the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona on Friday evening, posting a lap of 49.499 in the final round of qualifying to earn his first pole of the 2023 season and the second of his Cup Series career. Briscoe's pole is his first since June 2022, when he won the pole for the inaugural Cup race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Briscoe will be joined on the front row for Saturday night's regular season finale by Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Aric Almirola, headlining what was a strong outing in qualifying for both the company and Ford as a whole. All four SHR cars qualified in the top 10 -- Ryan Preece qualified ninth and Kevin Harvick 10th -- and were among seven Fords in total that made the final round of qualifying. Among that group was Harrison Burton (third) and Riley Herbst (sixth), both of whom earned the best starting spots of their Cup careers.

Saturday night's intrigue at the playoff cut line will begin at the very front of the field, as Bubba Wallace and main playoff rival Ty Gibbs qualified right with each other in fourth and fifth, respectively. Wallace enters this race with a 32-point lead on Gibbs for the final playoff spot, with Daniel Suarez -- who qualified 22nd -- the only other driver still eligible to make the playoffs on points.

Two teams reportedly had issues in pre-qualifying tech inspection, as the No. 13 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet driven by Chandler Smith and the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Chevrolet driven by Josh Berry both failed inspection twice. As a result, both teams have lost a crew member as well as pit selection.