DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Lightning in the Daytona Beach area forced NASCAR to cancel Cup Series qualifying on Friday afternoon. As a result, Ryan Blaney will lead the field to the green flag for the third time this season.
Update: NASCAR penalized the No. 24 team after setting the starting lineup at Daytona
With lightning canceling qualifying, NASCAR set the starting lineup by its points metric. This is the same metric NASCAR uses to set the qualifying order each week of the season.
MORE: Daytona summer race starting lineup
The Team Penske driver will start from the pole for the first time at Daytona as he tries to gain crucial points and move up the Cup Series standings. He enters Saturday's race fifth in the standings, but he could move up to second with a strong performance at a track where he has a previous win.
Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman will line up second. This could be crucial for Bowman, who remains the last driver in the playoffs on points. This position could set him up to gain stage points early and potentially overtake Tyler Reddick.
"I think with the points deal with the 45, we need to get stage points and that'll kind of, like even to be blunt, like stage 1 will determine how we race stage 1 and kind of go from there," Bowman said on Saturday.
"So, yeah, we need to do all we can to catch and beat the 45 on points."
Reddick will start 27th in Saturday's race, so he will be at a disadvantage early compared to Bowman.
The rest of the top 10 of the starting lineup will include Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, and Josh Berry.
William Byron originally claimed the eighth position in the starting lineup. However, NASCAR caught the No. 24 team making an unapproved adjustment after going through inspection. This led to multiple penalties, including the ejection of crew chief Rudy Fugle.
Byron will have to start the race from the rear of the field. He will then serve a stop-and-go penalty after taking the green flag.
While the lightning benefited Bowman, it did not help Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece. These two RFK Racing drivers are in a must-win situation heading into Saturday night's race.
Preece will line up way back on the 16th row for Saturday night's race. He will have to try to work his way through the field over three stages of superspeedway racing. Buescher will line up on the 12th row, 24th overall. He will join Ty Dillon, another winless driver seeking to turn his season around with a win.
Michael McDowell, another driver below the cutline, did not get his wish on Friday. He expressed hope multiple times that he would take part in qualifying so that he would potentially be much further up in the field. This did not happen, so he will line up 20th on Saturday night.
"I'm not really concerned about the not practicing or not having laps parts, as much as I am about having a better starting position than what our current is with the metrics is," McDowell said on Friday afternoon.