NASCAR Bristol 2014 qualifying results: Denny Hamlin unseats Team Penske, wins Bristol pole

Denny Hamlin wasn’t on the track much during qualifying at Bristol Motor Speedway, but when he was he made it count, winning the pole for Sunday’s Food City 500.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver ran all of two laps Friday, but his lap of 129.991 mph was 0.003 second faster than second-place qualifier Brad Keselowski, and it broke the previous track record set by teammate Kyle Busch a year ago.

Hamlin’s first pole of the season and the 18th of his career also snapped the dominance Team Penske had shown in NASCAR’s new knockout-style qualifying format, which allows multiple drivers on the track at once and incorporates eliminations. Keselowski and teammate Joey Logano had swept the front row the previous two weeks.

“We were pretty strategic in how we executed that qualifying session and Keselowski obviously had some laps on his tires put one down there,” Hamlin said. “We thought that it was going to be one and done for us ... luckily we didn’t have to go back out there.”

Logano qualified fourth and will share the second row with third-place qualifier Matt Kenseth. Marcos Ambrose, Jeff Gordon, Busch, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne completed the top 10.

Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards, the only other drivers to advance to the elimination round, qualified 11th and 12th, respectively.

The session was without incident days following NASCAR’s decision to ban drivers from circling the track slowly during qualifying to cool their engines. Teams are now permitted to use cooling units on pit road, which allows drivers to make multiple qualifying attempts.

“I think that rule change has just made qualifying even better,” Keselowski said. “It’s removed danger and replaced it with opportunity.

“For the betterment of the sport and certainly if for no other reason that safety it’s definitely worth it. But I also feel like being able to go out there and make multiple runs is now a lot more plausible because of that scenario and that’s something that rewards the fans and rewards the teams as well.”

Sprint Cup Series points leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified 14th. Other notables: Austin Dillon (26th), Kevin Harvick (27th), Danica Patrick (36th) and Tony Stewart (37th).

Patrick was one of six drivers who crashed in the 90-minute practice session earlier in the day. She, Justin Allgaier, Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle were forced to go to backup cars.

David Reutimann and Dave Blaney failed to qualify.