Byron wins first pole of season at Homestead

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — William Byron‘s playoff push will start from the ideal spot Sunday. He won the pole in Saturday’s qualifying laps at Homestead-Miami Speedway, turning in a lap of 32.454 seconds.

That was 0.049 seconds ahead of fellow playoff entrant Bell. Another driver still in the playoff, Chase Elliott, will start third.

“Anywhere in that top 10 is a good place to start here,” said Byron, who got the first pole of his season and the eighth of his career.

Among the other drivers still in the playoff: Ryan Blaney will start 13th, Hamlin 14th, Logano 17th, Briscoe 19th and Chastain 20th.

Most drivers don’t expect to see much correlation between qualifying and what’ll happen over 267 laps on Sunday.

“The car drives tremendously different and the lines are different around the racetrack, too,” Bell said. “It’s completely two different animals.”

Comforts of home

Daniel Suarez is from Mexico, not Miami, but he feels the comforts of home this weekend in a place where most people speak at least some Spanish and the Latin flavor is just about everywhere.

“Everything starts, I would say, driving to the racetrack,” Suarez said. “If you turn on the radio and you start flipping stations, everything is in Spanish. Then we get to the racetrack and most of the security people speak Spanish. So, the energy just feels different, and they make me feel like home. And that feels very amazing.”

It’s not uncommon for Suarez to go to tracks and hear plenty of Spanish — he cited Texas and “every single race on the West Coast” as such locales.

“I really feel more like home in coming to places like this,” Suarez said. “And I know that there are going to be a lot of fans speaking to me in Spanish and bringing some Mexican flags. We have a lot of support and that is something that I really enjoy a lot.”