Toyota’s Shine In 1st Cup Practice Friday, Ford’s Quick In 2nd

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla – The two Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice sessions from the “World Center of Speed” on Friday were a tale of two opposite rounds.

The first practice was dominated by Toyota’s with the second being Ford dominated.

In session No. 1 of the day, Kyle Busch topped the speed chart with a speed of 200.285 mph in his No. 18 Toyota. His car was repaired overnight as despite his spin in last night’s Gander RV Duels, he will not have to go to a backup car.

Second fastest was his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate of Martin Truex Jr. The 2016 Daytona 500 runner-up circled the high banked 2.5-mile track with a lap of 200.200 mph in his No. 19 Toyota. The other two JGR cars were fourth (Erik Jones) who went 200.156 mph in his No. 20 Toyota and seventh (Denny Hamlin) who turned in a speed of 200.044 mph in his No. 11 Toyota.

Ryan Preece was tops of everyone else in his No. 47 Chevrolet. Preece, turned in a speed of 200.169 mph. Ford’s Ryan Newman rounded out the top five in his No. 6 Ford with a lap of 200.093 mph.

If you throw in Matt DiBenedetto’s speed of 200.080 mph in his No. 95 Toyota, you get five Toyota’s in the top seven on the speed chart.

Session No. 2 was all about the Ford’s though. Maybe it was because no Toyota’s other than Parker Kligerman’s No. 96 Toyota took to the track. Kligerman at that, did a single car run.

Ford’s has 12 of the top 13 speeds in the final session of the day with Paul Menard pacing the 29 drivers who took a time. Menard’s lap of 200.758 mph in his No. 21 Ford was fast time of the day.

Jamie McMurray, who will be making his final Daytona start on Sunday, was P2 with a speed of 200.696 mph in his No. 40 Chevrolet. The rest of the top 13 were all Ford’s.

The Roush Fenway Racing duo of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (200.664 mph) and Newman (200.638 mph) were third and fourth respectively while Clint Bowyer (200.588 mph) rounded out the top five.

Both sessions went incident free despite some drafting practice. There’s now just one more practice session left before Sunday’s 61st annual Daytona 500 (2:30 p.m. ET/FOX/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

 

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