Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. qualified third and teammate Erik Jones 30th for Sunday’s Save Mart/Toyota 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
Truex will line up the No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota Camry on the inside of Row 2 for the 110-lap race after posting a pole-shootout round lap of 75.453 seconds at 94.947 mph on the 11-turn, 1.99-mile road course.
Truex was 14th and out of the pole-shootout round after his initial lap in the first of two qualifying sessions. He went out for a second try and turned in the second-quickest lap of the session at 75.201 at 95.265.
“It definitely hurt the tires to make that extra lap in the first round,” said Truex. “I just didn’t get it all the first time out — tried to save a little bit of tire for the final round. But if you don’t push it 100 percent here you lose a lot of time. I just under-drove it. Luckily we were able to make it through the first round. Overall it’s been good here for our Furniture Row Racing team and I am looking forward to tomorrow. We can win from the third qualifying spot.”
The qualifying effort was Truex’s fifth top-10 start at Sonoma Raceway and his 13th top 10 in 16 races this season.
Jones, competing in only the sixth road course race of his NASCAR national series career and first ever at Sonoma Raceway, posted the 30th-quickest lap of the first session of 76.647 at 93.467.
“We’re still trying to learn and figure it out,” said Jones, who was forced to a backup car after spinning and hitting the tire wall in Friday’s practice. “We’re trying to get better each run and get more speed out of the 5-hour ENERGY Toyota. It’s definitely not where we want to start but we’ll make the most of it.”
Kyle Larson won the pole position (75.177 at 95.295). The balance of the top-12 qualifiers in order were: Jamie McMurray, Truex, Kyle Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Danica Patrick, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Chris Buescher, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Daniel Suarez and Kevin Harvick.
Sunday’s Save Mart/Toyota 350 will air live beginning at 1 p.m. MT (3 p.m. ET) on Fox Sports 1, SiriusXM 90 and PRN.