Shane van Gisbergen has put Red Bull on pole for NASCAR’s first Cup Series race at Naval Base Coronado.
The Trackhouse driver topped Saturday qualifying for Sunday’s Anduril 250 Race the Base, setting a 134.788-second lap at 90.809mph on the San Diego Street Course. The time put him just ahead of Carson Hocevar, whose 134.944-second effort secured a Chevrolet front row for the temporary military-base layout.
Van Gisbergen turns San Diego into Trackhouse’s race to lose
It is a sharp escalation from Friday, when Kyle Larson gave NASCAR’s San Diego Cup debut its first benchmark in practice. Larson will start only 14th after qualifying, leaving van Gisbergen with clean air for a race expected to punish traffic, tyre use and small wall-brush errors.
The official NASCAR Statistics sheet published by Jayski placed Hocevar second, Ryan Blaney third, Zane Smith fourth and Todd Gilliland fifth. Daniel Suarez starts sixth, with Ryan Preece, Connor Zilisch, Michael McDowell and Austin Hill completing the top 10.
For Trackhouse, the front row is only half the story. Van Gisbergen’s pole follows the team’s wider San Diego push, with Red Bull’s Trackhouse presence already giving the weekend a sharper spotlight and Kevin Magnussen’s Project 91 entry starting 21st.
Bell and Johnson face long Sunday from deep in the field
The result also deepens the task for two of the weekend’s headline names. Jimmie Johnson starts 36th, while Christopher Bell is 37th as his recovery from a wrist injury remains part of the Sunday equation. That makes Bell’s San Diego race-distance question even harder with the field stacked ahead of him.
NASCAR’s own weekend schedule lists the Cup race for Sunday afternoon, giving van Gisbergen the first shot at turning NASCAR’s newest street-race stage into another road-course statement.
