Fourth row start for Ambrose at Sonoma

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose will start the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in northern California from eighth position.

On the first of only two NASCAR Sprint Cup events on road courses, it was young gun Joey Logano who won the pole.

The Coors Light Pole Award was the second for Logano, who posted a lap at 93.256 mph and watched as the 12 drivers who followed him in the time trials fail to run faster. Jamie McMurray (93.223 mph) qualified second, and Paul Menard (93.176 mph) claimed the third starting position.

Those who might have expected road-course aces Ambrose and Juan Montoya to top the qualifying speed chart got a surprise with Ambrose set to start from the fourth row while the Colombian was 17th.

After coming close to winning at the Sonoma track in the past, Ambrose concentrated his practice efforts into ensuring he had a fast race car, plus work with the different specification Goodyear race tyre in 2011.

“We were struggling in practice a little bit but we got a gain there, so I feel better about it,” said Ambrose.

“We are going to get a good race car out of it – we just have to keep working away.

“This new tyre they brought here has thrown us for a loop a little bit. We just aren’t quite prepared for it. We will get it right by Sunday.”

Video of Marcos Ambrose’s qualfying run

RESULTS: QUALIFYING Toyota/Save Mart 350 –  Infineon Raceway

Pos	Driver	Speed (MPH)	Time
1	Joey Logano	93.256	76.82
2	Jamie McMurray	93.223	76.85
3	Paul Menard	93.176	76.89
4	Denny Hamlin	93.081	76.96
5	Ryan Newman	93.062	76.98
6	Kasey Kahne	92.936	77.08
7	A.J. Allmendinger	92.935	77.09
8	Marcos Ambrose	92.918	77.10
9	Clint Bowyer	92.830	77.17
10	Brian Vickers	92.720	77.26
11	Kurt Busch	92.616	77.35
12	Jimmie Johnson	92.561	77.40
13	Jeff Gordon	92.553	77.40
14	Martin Truex Jr.	92.545	77.41
15	Brad Keselowski	92.447	77.49
16	Mark Martin	92.439	77.50
17	Juan Pablo Montoya	92.411	77.52
18	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	92.372	77.56
19	Kyle Busch	92.348	77.58
20	Tony Stewart	92.184	77.71
21	Bobby Labonte	92.157	77.74
22	Greg Biffle	92.096	77.79
23	Carl Edwards	92.076	77.80
24	Regan Smith	92.022	77.85
25	Jeff Burton	91.986	77.88
26	Kevin Harvick	91.818	78.02
27	Casey Mears	91.764	78.07
28	Robby Gordon	91.751	78.08
29	David Gilliland	91.689	78.13
30	Boris Said	91.603	78.21
31	Joe Nemechek	91.406	78.38
32	David Reutimann	91.388	78.39
33	Matt Kenseth	91.315	78.45
34	David Ragan	91.255	78.50
35	PJ Jones	91.223	78.53
36	Dave Blaney	91.214	78.54
37	Mike Skinner	90.781	78.92
38	David Mayhew	90.561	79.11
39	Terry Labonte	90.504	79.16
40	Brian Simo	90.346	79.30
41	Andy Lally	90.303	79.33
42	Chris Cook	90.285	79.35
43	Andy Pilgrim	89.885	79.70
DNQ	Tony Ave	89.717	79.85