MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Hoping to win his way into the Championship 4, Austin Cindric will start from the pole for Saturday’s scheduled NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

Cindric earned the top spot on the grid thanks to NASCAR’s metric qualifying formula.

The NASCAR matrix factors in a driver’s lap speed ranking from the previous race, the last race finish for both driver and owner and the car’s current rank in the owner standings.

Lap speed is weighted at 15 percent, previous race finish at 25 percent for the driver and owner results and owner points position at 35 percent to calculate the final metric score.

Driver and owner playoff-eligible entries are ranked at the front of the field based on their metric scores from lowest to highest, with all non-playoff entries lined up behind the playoff cars in similar fashion.

Cindric earned the top spot with a metric score of 3.6, factoring in a fourth-place finish last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, the sixth-fastest lap from that event and runner-up status in the current point standings.

Noah Gragson, who nearly won at Texas and likely still needs to win at Martinsville to make the Championship 4, will join Cindric on the front row. Kaulig Racing teammates Justin Haley and Ross Chastain will share the second row of the starting grid.

Chase Briscoe fills out the top five, followed by Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, Jeb Burton and Ryan Sieg among the playoff contenders that still remain eligible for either the driver or owner titles.

Texas winner Harrison Burton starts best among the non-playoff drivers in 10th.

To view the complete starting lineup and performance matrix, click here.

The Draft Top 250, the first NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville since 2006, is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. ET start on Saturday, with live coverage on NBC, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

If the rain-postponed NASCAR Cup Series race from Texas is not able to be completed on Wednesday, the Xfinity Series schedule at Martinsville is subject to change, per NASCAR.