Jimmie Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, qualified 16^th in time trials Friday at Daytona International Speedway for Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Johnson turned a lap of 47.003 seconds at 191.477 mph on the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

“Well there is only so much we can do here,” offered Johnson following his qualifying attempt. “It was a decent lap. We are not really sure what to expect speed wise here. We really don’t work on speed for the pole, but we are going to have a great race car come race time.”

Matt Kenseth captured his eighth career Sprint Cup pole, his first of the season and his first at Daytona by posting a lap of 46.781 seconds at 192.386 mph.

Ryan Newman will start on the outside of row one as he timed in at 46.789 seconds at 192.353 mph. Kasey Kahne was third (46.804 seconds at 192.291 mph), while Greg Biffle (46.841 seconds at 192.139 mph) and Jeff Gordon (46.860 seconds at 192.061 mph) rounded out the top five. Tony Stewart posted the second-fastest time, but his lap was disallowed by NASCAR officials as the team had an open cooling hose in the cockpit which is in violation of Rule 20A-2.1J in the NASCAR rulebook. Stewart will now start 42^nd.

Forty-four drivers attempted to qualify for the 400-mile event. The lone driver not making the cut in the 43-car field was Robert Richardson.

As far as manufacturers went, Ford took the top spot via Kenseth’s pole run. Chevrolet was next best at the hands of Newman. Dodge was the third-fastest make thanks to eighth-quick A.J. Allmendinger (46.901 seconds at 191.894 mph), while 18^th-fastest Martin Truex Jr. (47.060 seconds at 191.245 mph) carried the flag for Toyota.

Saturday night’s race gets underway at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by TNT beginning with a pre-race show at 6:30 p.m.