Clint Bowyer leads Ford armada in first Cup practice at Daytona

With many of the Ford drivers working together later in the 55-minute session, Bowyer vaulted to the top of the leaderboard with an average lap speed of 200.799 mph.

Bowyer’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Aric Almirola was second (200.691 mph) and Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski was third (200.553 mph). Fellow Ford drivers Ryan Blaney and Kurt Busch completed the top-five.

“I think it’s your typical speedway, especially now that we’re getting down close to playoff time and the cutoff line is getting pretty close,” Blaney said. “There are people who really need to get stage points, stage wins and come down to the end of the race you really need a win.  

“There are a lot of great cars outside looking in are really close right now, but everybody is going to be trying really hard to win. These races are pretty insane and you never know what could happen.”

Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick (Fords) was sixth and seventh, respectively, and three Chevrolet drivers – A.J. Allmendinger, Chris Buescher and Chase Elliott – rounded out the Top 10.

Elliott was competing Thursday with a sprained ankle. In a message Elliott posted on his Twitter account, Elliott said he sprained his ankle on Wednesday while “horsing around” by the pool. Elliott said his X-rays were negative.

The top Toyota driver was Denny Hamlin in 15th.

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	20	44.821			200.799
2	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	22	44.845	0.024	0.024	200.691
3	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	21	44.876	0.055	0.031	200.553
4	22	Joey Logano	Ford	26	44.879	0.058	0.003	200.539
5	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	16	44.881	0.060	0.002	200.530
6	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	24	44.883	0.062	0.002	200.521
7	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	28	44.887	0.066	0.004	200.503
8	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	11	44.917	0.096	0.030	200.370
9	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	16	44.919	0.098	0.002	200.361
10	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	17	44.971	0.150	0.052	200.129
11	21	Paul Menard	Ford	17	45.043	0.222	0.072	199.809
12	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	23	45.128	0.307	0.085	199.433
13	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	15	45.143	0.322	0.015	199.366
14	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	33	45.143	0.322	0.000	199.366
15	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	19	45.152	0.331	0.009	199.327
16	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	22	45.152	0.331	0.000	199.327
17	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	24	45.157	0.336	0.005	199.305
18	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	21	45.160	0.339	0.003	199.291
19	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	25	45.163	0.342	0.003	199.278
20	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	23	45.174	0.353	0.011	199.230
21	38	David Ragan	Ford	16	45.200	0.379	0.026	199.115
22	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	36	45.305	0.484	0.105	198.654
23	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	23	45.335	0.514	0.030	198.522
24	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	26	45.337	0.516	0.002	198.513
25	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	17	45.340	0.519	0.003	198.500
26	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	25	45.372	0.551	0.032	198.360
27	95	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	7	45.400	0.579	0.028	198.238
28	6	Trevor Bayne	Ford	20	45.419	0.598	0.019	198.155
29	62	Brendan Gaughan		8	45.482	0.661	0.063	197.880
30	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	16	45.572	0.751	0.090	197.490
31	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	17	46.066	1.245	0.494	195.372
32	72	Corey Lajoie	Chevrolet	16	46.682	1.861	0.616	192.794
33	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	16	47.462	2.641	0.780	189.625
34	15	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	11	47.652	2.831	0.190	188.869
35	7	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Chevrolet	1	48.319	3.498	0.667	186.262
36	00	Joey Gase	Chevrolet	6	48.330	3.509	0.011	186.220
37	23	J.J. Yeley	Toyota	14	48.418	3.597	0.088	185.881
38	96	D.J. Kennington	Toyota	3	48.442	3.621	0.024	185.789
39	92	Timothy Peters	Ford	5	48.504	3.683	0.062	185.552
40	51	Ray Black Jr.	Chevrolet