Martin Truex Jr. was the last driver on track in the pole round of qualifying, rocketing to the top of the charts with a 19.686s lap that denied Hendrick Motorsports a front row lockout.

“I felt great about our car on stickers,” said Truex, who also led the way in Cup practice. “You know, you never want to get too optimistic but it fired off really good in practice — especially that second run when the track rubbered in.

“I was like: ‘Alright, if we can just hit the balance here for qualifying it should be really fast.’ Proud of James [Small, crew chief] and all of the guys and everyone back at JGR and at TRD. We haven’t had a whole lot of good going for us lately. This feels awesome. Anytime you’re first at anything in this series is special and exciting. We got some work to do for tomorrow, but hopefully we can make a gain on it and have a good day.”

This is Truex’s 24th career pole and his first of the 2024 season. His last P1 start came at this very race one year ago. Truex is also winless in his last full-time season of competition, which he hopes to change in the final two weeks.

“Two more chances to win,” said Truex. “We want it bad. We are working hard. We are not giving up and hopefully we can get one for everyone.”

Truex will share the front row with Chase Elliott, who was the highest-qualifying playoff driver. William Byron was third, Chase Briscoe fourth, and Ty Gibbs fifth. Rounding out the remainder of the top-ten was Harrison Burton, Alex Bowman, Ryan Preece, Kyle Larson, and Austin Dillon.

Round 1

In Group A qualifying, the Stewart-Haas Racing drivers impressed with Briscoe and teammate Preece topping the charts, followed by Elliott and Burton. Dillon was the final driver to advance, beating Championship 4-bound Joey Logano by 0.025s.

Ryan Blaney, facing a likely must-win, qualified 14th. Christopher Bell, who sits 29 points above the cut-line, was a surprisingly mediocre 16th while the two drivers chasing him moved forward to the pole round. 

In Group B, Truex led the way there with an astonishing 19.584s lap — over a tenth faster than his eventual pole run. He was joined by the Hendrick trio of Byron, Bowman and Larson, as well as JGR teammate Gibbs. Larson was the final driver to advance, besting Josh Berry by 0.029s.

Tyler Reddick, who locked himself into the Championship 4 with a dramatic last-lap pass at Homestead, made an error on his fast lap and will start 31st. However, the lowest-starting playoff driver will be the one who did not even take part. After the throttle stuck in practice, Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 car sustained significant rear end damage. Hamlin did not participate in qualifying as the team makes extensive repairs to the car. He will start 37th (last) on Sunday, 18 points below the cut-line.

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Formula 1’s latest technical controversy has erupted at the Brazilian Grand Prix amid suspicions that some teams have allegedly used water to cool their tyres from the inside.

With the fight for the championship between Red Bull and McLaren getting super close, there has been an increased probing between the two squads over elements of their cars.

McLaren came under fire for its mini-DRS rear wing, which the team had to alter in the wake of complaints about the concept being outside the rules.

Then more recently there was a row over Red Bull having a front bib adjuster inside its car that some of its rivals suspected could have been used to adjust ride height during parc ferme conditions.

Both matters brought intervention from the FIA, but neither squad was found to have done anything illegal.

Now, however, Motorsport.com has learned that attention has shifted to a trick that Red Bull suspects has been used by several of its rivals – believed to include McLaren – to help cool tyres during races.

The theory is that some teams have found a way to inject water – or another unspecified liquid – into the tyres through the valves shortly before tyres are fitted to the cars in the race.

Having such a coolant inside the tyre could help keep the bulk of the tyre cool to help limit thermal degradation, and ultimately help deliver better race pace.

It is understood that concern about the activity erupted after the Singapore Grand Prix when sources suggest some rims of teams were spotted with liquid inside them – something that is unusual.

That is because teams normally make an extra effort to try to remove all moisture from inside a tyre as that helps to ensure teams can hit perfect peak tyre pressure.

Indeed, F1’s technical regulations make a point of trying to limit the amount of moisture that teams can remove rather than add.

Article 10.8.4 states that: “Tyres may only be inflated with air or nitrogen” and “any process the intent of which is to reduce the amount of moisture in the tyre and/or in its inflation gas is forbidden.”

Motorsport.com has learned that the FIA has been alerted to the concerns about the activity, and its head of single-seater matters Nikolas Tombazis has been in dialogue with Pirelli and teams at the Brazilian GP to discuss the matter.

Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner talks with Nikolas Tombazis, FIA Single Seater Director

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Furthermore, it is understood that Tombazis kept a close eye over the removal of the tyres from their rims after the sprint race in Brazil to see if there was any evidence of unusual liquid there.

Although there has been no official comments from the FIA over the matter, it is understood that there is scepticism about whether or not teams would be trying to exploit matters in this area.

The FIA scrutineering report from the sprint race also confirmed that tyres were inspected, and given the all clear. It said: “The tyres used by all drivers during the Sprint today have been checked.”

It is understood that the idea of adding moisture to tyres has been outlawed for many years through a technical directive that the FIA issued previously, so anyone found to have been adding liquid in this manner could risk being reported to the stewards.

The race pace mystery

Red Bull has been hunting for answers as to why its race pace advantage over rivals disappeared this season – especially at the Miami GP where a number of other squads made a leap that could not be explained through upgrades.

Max Verstappen said ahead of the Brazilian GP that the long runs of rival teams are hard to fathom.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

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“Some teams made huge steps on race pace, which is quite odd,” he explained. “Because if you look at our car compared to last year, we made steps in qualifying and in the race.

“The others also make a decent step in qualifying pace, but then they make a much, much bigger step in race pace. And that’s something that’s hard for us to understand.”

Team principal Christian Horner told Motorsport.com recently about the swing of form in Miami: “If one was a sceptic and somewhat paranoid, you say something’s changed. Because even when we’ve gone back to the configuration of the car that, for example, we had in China, we still have some of the same issues that we have experienced.

“But, in saying that, it changed for everybody, potentially. But I’ve never in a season seen a swing so exaggerated. Obviously we have to get on top of that. We have to understand it.”

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After setting the fastest time early in practice, things went very wrong for Denny Hamlin. The car fired off into Turn 3 as a high rate of speed, spinning sideways and backing into the outside wall.

“Stuck throttle! F****** stuck throttle!” exclaimed Hamlin the radio. There was significant damage to the rear clip of the car. Hamlin drove the wounded No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota back to the garage. As he climbed from the car, he slammed his helmet down on the roof in frustration.

Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota Camry

Photo by: Bozi Tatarevic

After narrowly missing out on the win at Homestead, Hamlin enters Martinsville 18 points below the cut-line. It would have been difficult, but he could have pointed his way in with the benefit of stages, but that path is likely gone now. Unless something surprising happens to the Hendrick Motorsports drivers in front of him, a win may be necessary on Sunday.

He will not take part in qualifying and will start from the rear of the field. And Martinsville is a track where passing is difficult and those in the back are lapped rather quickly, so this really puts him behind for Sunday. The team has the choice to either make repairs to the primary or go to a backup for the race. At the moment, they are trying to fix the primary and will run it through inspection to check the measurements.

Hamlin was the first driver to miss out on the final four in both 2022 and 2023. He is the winningest driver in NASCAR Cup Series history without a championship as well. It’s a glass ceiling he simply cannot seem to brea and a myriad of issues have plagued him throughout the playoffs this year.

Joey Logano  and Tyler Reddick are the two drivers locked into the title-decider at Phoenix with Christopher Bell +29 points and William Byron +7 points on the cut-line.

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