NASCAR Dover 2014 qualifying results: Kevin Harvick snares 7th pole

NASCAR’s new multi-round, knockout qualifying format has been good to Kevin Harvick, who won a series-best seventh pole of the season Friday at Dover International Speedway.

Harvick was fastest in both sessions, and his Round 2 lap of 162.933 miles per hour gave him the pole for Sunday’s AAA 400. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin will start second and third, respectively.

Never regarded as a good qualifier prior to this season, Harvick has excelled in his first year with Stewart-Haas Racing. From 2001 to 2013 Harvick won a total of six poles in 466 starts.

“It’s been an amazing year for everybody on our Budweiser Stewart-Haas racing team,” Harvick said. “They just do a great job in preparing the race cars and put a lot of effort into qualifying, and it’s translated into a lot of good finishes.”

The final race of the opening Chase for the Sprint Cup bracket saw a majority of the playoff field struggle in qualifying.

Along with Harvick, Busch and Hamlin, only Brad Keselowski (fourth), Jeff Gordon (fifth), Jimmie Johnson (eighth) and Kasey Kahne (12th) will start better than 12th Sunday.

Fellow Chasers Matt Kenseth (14th), Joey Logano (16th), Carl Edwards (18th), Ryan Newman (20th), Aric Almirola (21st), Kurt Busch (22nd), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (25th), Greg Biffle (27th) and AJ Allmendinger (28th) all failed to advance out of the first session.

Said Allmendinger: “It sucked. We are just not fast enough.”

Logano’s omission was most notable. Dover represented just the third time this season the Team Penske driver failed to make the final round.

“We just didn’t go fast enough, I don’t know,” Logano said. “We unloaded pretty far off today and we spent a lot of time on race-trim. We got started behind the eight ball and trying to make that up and didn’t put a great effort into qualifying today, so we’re gonna start a little further toward the back.”

Keselowski and Logano have clinched advancement to Chase No. 2, and Harvick, third in the standings, is fairly secure. The lowest four drivers in points will be eliminated following Sunday’s race.

“Just try to win, that’s really the thinking at this particular point,” Harvick said. “Obviously, points-wise, we feel like we’re in good shape and we just want to keep building on the momentum we have.”

All 43 drivers entered qualified Friday.