Chase Briscoe is starting on the pole for today’s NASCAR Cup race at Iowa Speedway.

Finishing up front on a regular basis is his next goal.

Briscoe won his sixth pole position of the season during Saturday’s qualifying for the Iowa Corn 350, running a lap of 136.933 mph. Despite his qualifying success this season, he has just one win this year.

“You getting tired of this?” Brad Keselowski joked with Briscoe in the media center after qualifying.

Briscoe got almost the same question when his press conference began.

“It’s definitely better than starting mid-pack or whatever,” Briscoe said. “It’s getting old not converting them to race wins, though, that’s for sure.”

Briscoe noted the benefits of starting up front.

“It just typically gives you a great opportunity to get stage points and all those things,” he said. “Obviously there’s a great pit-stall selection.”

He then added another joke.

“I would love it if we can make a new system where if you get five poles, you can trade them in for one race win,” Briscoe said, smiling.

Briscoe, who was also on the pole for last week’s race at Indianapolis, had won just two poles in his first four seasons in the Cup Series. He had a streak of three consecutive pole wins earlier this season.

“The race cars are really, really good, truthfully,” he said. “I felt like my entire career, even at (Stewart-Haas Racing) in Cup, we’d always kind of over-exceed where we probably should qualify. And qualifying has always been, I feel, probably my strongest thing. And now I’m just in race cars that let me go run really fast lap times. I don’t do anything different from what I’ve been doing the last four years of my Cup career. Just now, my cars are faster.”

William Bryon qualified second, followed by Kyle Laron, Austin Cindric and Kesolowski.

Iowa Speedway’s date on the schedule worked out perfectly from a logistics standpoint for Larson.

Larson is halfway through his two-week stay in nearby Knoxville, where he is racing in two of the nation’s top sprint car events — the 360 Nationals this weekend and the Knoxville Nationals for 410 sprint cars next week.

“It’s always a fun time of year for me,” said Larson, who has won three Nationals titles, including last season.

Larson finished second in Thursday’s A-Main of the 360 Nationals, and started fifth in Saturday night’s A-Main.

Knoxville is just 40 miles from Iowa Speedway, so it works out well for Larson this weekend. The Cup Series is at Watkins Glen International in New York next Sunday.

“Next week, the logistics get a little hectic as we get to the weekend, but that’s all normal,” Larson said.

nascar Xfinity

Sam Mayer took control of Saturday’s Hy-Vee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway after a restart on Lap 221 and maintained his edge the rest of the way to record his first victory for the Haas Factory team and the first in the series for Ford this season.

Mayer won at Iowa for the second straight year, driving in a JR Motorsports Chevrolet last season. The eighth victory of his career ended rookie Connor Zilisch’s three-race winning streak.

Pole-sitter Jesse Love as second, followed by Ross Chastain, Zilisch and Harrison Burton.

Formula One

Lewis Hamilton called himself “absolutely useless” and suggested Ferrari should change drivers after he qualified 12th for today’s Hungarian Grand Prix, where teammate Charles Leclerc took pole position.

It was a new low in a difficult first season with Ferrari for seven-time Formula 1 champion Hamilton, who qualified outside the top 10 for the second race in a row.

“I’m useless, absolutely useless,” Hamilton said. “The team have no problem. You’ve seen the car’s on pole. So they probably need to change driver.”

Leclerc is fifth in the driver standings, only one position ahead of Hamilton, but has five podium finishes in 2005.

In today’s race, he’ll aim to give Ferrari its first F1 win since October.

Points leader Oscar Piastri was second in qualifying, followed by McLaren teammate Lando Norris.