Watkins Glen Cup qualifying: Chase Elliott wins pole

Chase Elliott has won the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International (3 p.m. ET on USA Network, NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com).

Elliott’s lap of 70.477 seconds around the 7-turn road course was enough to beat out the other nine pole contenders in the final round of qualifying.

“I feel like we had some work to do there from where we were in practice,” Elliott told NBC Sports. “Felt like there were some parts of the track I wanted to put together better.

“It’s just really hard to hit all of them. It’s so fast. The pace is so high, and this car here – I feel like from what I remember, and how much throttle you’re carrying, it’s just a little bit that carries with you a long way.”

Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson qualified second (70.516 seconds) after a not-ideal morning for his No. 5 team.

Before practice/qualifying, Larson’s car twice failed pre-race inspection. That cost the team their pit selection for Sunday. The team’s car chief, Jesse Saunders, was also ejected.

Nonetheless, it’s the third time in 2022 that Hendrick drivers have swept the front row in qualifying.

Row 2 is set to feature Michael McDowell (70.738 seconds) and William Byron (70.811 seconds). Byron is also the pole sitter for this afternoon’s Xfinity Series race at the Glen.

Behind them in Row 3 will be Tyler Reddick (70.837 seconds) and Xfinity regular A.J. Allmendinger (70.980 seconds).

Among the other notables:

Christopher Bell didn’t take part in qualifying after his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota suffered an apparent engine failure during his group practice session.

At roughly the same time, Ty Gibbs (subbing again in Kurt Busch’s No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota) lost control out of the “bus stop” chicane and spun