NASCAR playoffs at Las Vegas starting lineup: Christopher Bell wins his sixth pole of 2023

Bell has now won the pole for four of the seven races in this year's playoffs

By Steven Taranto

Oct 15, 2023 at 1:01 pm ET • 1 min read

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Christopher Bell won the pole for the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in qualifying on Saturday, posting a lap of 29.980 in the final round to earn his sixth pole of the 2023 season and his fourth pole in seven playoff races so far. Bell, who has advanced to the Round of 8 and looks to make the Championship 4 for the second year in a row, previously won the pole for the Southern 500 at Darlington and then the remaining Round of 16 races at Kansas and Bristol.

Saturday morning's practice session leading into qualifying took place during a solar eclipse, but the most problematic orb-shaped object happened to be tires on multiple Chevrolets: Chase Elliott blew a right rear tire and crashed in Turn 3, and Daniel Suarez would spin following a tire issue off Turn 2 and took a hard hit into the inside wall.

Not only that, but a tire off of Kyle Larson's car was shown to be blistering at about the same time that Elliott had his accident. Larson was able to get back to pit road before the tire failed, and he was able to move on and eventually qualify second for Sunday's race.

CRASH: Chase Elliott.

Elliott hits the wall in practice. He's competing for the owner's championship for the No. 9 team. #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/Y7s2vbc5Z7
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 14, 2023

Another issue! This time, the No. 99 goes around. pic.twitter.com/vyYXKAdWTf
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 14, 2023

Round of 8 drivers claimed six of the top 10 starting spots, including the entire top five -- Bell first, Larson second, William Byron third, Martin Truex Jr. fourth and Chris Buescher fifth. Tyler Reddick qualified eighth, while Ryan Blaney in 12th and Denny Hamlin in 15th were the only Round of 8 drivers to qualify outside the top 10.