Daniel Suarez fastest in Saturday's first practice session

Under temperatures in the mid-30s, Suarez went out very late in Saturday’s first practice session and posted an average lap speed of 198.998 mph – the fastest lap recorded so far this weekend.

Kurt Busch’s pole-winning lap during Friday’s abbreviated qualifying session was 197.368 mph.

Suarez, who is set to start 14th on Sunday, said his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team has faced several challenges this season.

“We have had good speed, we just, we’ve been very inconsistent. We’ve been very – struggling a little bit sometimes, not always, but sometimes transferring that speed from practice to the race or from qualifying to practice,” Suarez said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway.

“The speed is there, we just have to be able to transfer that speed to the weekend and that’s something that we have to keep working on and try to keep getting better at. I’m sure we are going to get it.”

In two Cup series starts at Texas, Suarez finished 19th and 14th last season.

Suarez’s JGR teammate, Denny Hamlin, was second-fastest. Rookie William Byron was third, Jimmie Johnson fourth and Kevin Harvick completed the top five.

Rounding out the Top 10 were Erik Jones, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Blaney.

With less than 13½ minutes left in the session, Stenhouse came off Turn 4 and slammed into the outside wall, doing extensive damage to his No. 17 Roush Fenway Ford. He had just recorded the ninth-fastest speed in the session.

It was the second consecutive race Stenhouse had wrecked his primary car in a practice session. He had the same happen two weeks ago at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

The team immediately moved to bring out Stenhouse’s No. 17 backup car, which will require him to start Sunday’s O’Reilly 500 from the rear of the field. He was set to start 26th.

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	21	27.136			198.998
2	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	5	27.163	0.027	0.027	198.800
3	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	26	27.171	0.035	0.008	198.741
4	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	12	27.185	0.049	0.014	198.639
5	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	8	27.248	0.112	0.063	198.180
6	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	22	27.250	0.114	0.002	198.165
7	22	Joey Logano	Ford	26	27.266	0.130	0.016	198.049
8	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	23	27.269	0.133	0.003	198.027
9	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	15	27.288	0.152	0.019	197.889
10	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	18	27.298	0.162	0.010	197.817
11	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	15	27.344	0.208	0.046	197.484
12	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	23	27.354	0.218	0.010	197.412
13	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	22	27.379	0.243	0.025	197.231
14	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	13	27.387	0.251	0.008	197.174
15	6	Trevor Bayne	Ford	22	27.399	0.263	0.012	197.087
16	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	13	27.411	0.275	0.012	197.001
17	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	36	27.414	0.278	0.003	196.980
18	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	10	27.414	0.278	0.000	196.980
19	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	28	27.426	0.290	0.012	196.893
20	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	23	27.442	0.306	0.016	196.779
21	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	19	27.469	0.333	0.027	196.585
22	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	6	27.479	0.343	0.010	196.514
23	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	24	27.497	0.361	0.018	196.385
24	95	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	31	27.506	0.370	0.009	196.321
25	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	18	27.544	0.408	0.038	196.050
26	21	Paul Menard	Ford	23	27.548	0.412	0.004	196.021
27	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	25	27.590	0.454	0.042	195.723
28	38	David Ragan	Ford	24	27.634	0.498	0.044	195.411
29	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	15	27.703	0.567	0.069	194.925
30	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	34	28.043	0.907	0.340	192.561
31	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	28	28.176	1.040	0.133	191.652
32	72	Cole Whitt	Chevrolet	19	28.361	1.225	0.185	190.402
33	51	Harrison Rhodes	Chevrolet	16	28.550	1.414	0.189	189.142
34	00	Landon Cassill	Chevrolet	17	28.702	1.566	0.152	188.140