Practice report

NASCAR Cup Bristol

Erik Jones tops Saturday's first Cup Series practice at Bristol

Erik Jones continues on pace for a strong performance in this weekend’s Cup race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Jim Utter

Published: Apr 6, 2019, 1:40 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Erik Jones, Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota Camry Craftsman "Racing for a Miracle"

Jones followed up his fourth-place qualifying effort from Friday by leading Saturday’s first practice session.

His average lap speed of 129.903 mph (14.771 seconds) topped Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin (129.850 mph) and Daniel Suarez (129.482 mph). Joey Logano was fourth and Kyle Busch completed the top-five.

In four career Cup Series starts at Bristol, Jones has a pair of top-five finishes, including a fifth in last August’s race.

“I feel like we were making the right strides. There was just a lot of circumstantial stuff that happened in the last few races that didn’t play out,” Jones said. “Texas was a good race for us obviously. We have the speed and we’ve got the team.

“If we keep having races like Texas that win is going to come. I feel really good about this weekend. I feel like we’ve got a great chance to really knock this one out and have a pretty good race and hopefully win it.”

Rounding out the top-10 were Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick and Ryan Blaney.

In all, 21 teams ran laps under 15 seconds during the 55-minute session.

Practice was briefly halted with about 22 minutes left to check the track for debris.

Pole-winner Chase Elliott ended up 13th-fastest.

Cla # Driver Manufacturer Laps Time Gap Interval Mph 1 20 United States Erik Jones Toyota 47 14.771 129.903 2 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 42 14.777 0.006 0.006 129.850 3 41 Mexico Daniel Suarez Ford 66 14.819 0.048 0.042 129.482 4 22 Joey Logano Ford 55 14.852 0.081 0.033 129.195 5 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 62 14.853 0.082 0.001 129.186 6 48 United States Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 75 14.864 0.093 0.011 129.090 7 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 65 14.870 0.099 0.006 129.038 8 19 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 45 14.870 0.099 0.000 129.038 9 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 77 14.874 0.103 0.004 129.004 10 12 Ryan Blaney Ford 64 14.877 0.106 0.003 128.978 11 13 United States Ty Dillon Chevrolet 76 14.883 0.112 0.006 128.926 12 1 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 48 14.908 0.137 0.025 128.709 13 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 63 14.915 0.144 0.007 128.649 14 95 Matt DiBenedetto Toyota 73 14.921 0.150 0.006 128.597 15 10 Aric Almirola Ford 76 14.926 0.155 0.005 128.554 16 24 United States William Byron Chevrolet 110 14.942 0.171 0.016 128.417 17 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 63 14.951 0.180 0.009 128.339 18 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 46 14.954 0.183 0.003 128.313 19 6 Ryan Newman Ford 46 14.957 0.186 0.003 128.288 20 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 83 14.964 0.193 0.007 128.228 21 21 United States Paul Menard Ford 59 14.984 0.213 0.020 128.057 22 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 93 15.017 0.246 0.033 127.775 23 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 64 15.051 0.280 0.034 127.487 24 43 Darrell Wallace Jr. Chevrolet 61 15.062 0.291 0.011 127.393 25 47 Ryan Preece Chevrolet 54 15.097 0.326 0.035 127.098 26 34 United States Michael McDowell Ford 63 15.105 0.334 0.008 127.031 27 32 Corey Lajoie Ford 47 15.108 0.337 0.003 127.006 28 8 Daniel Hemric Chevrolet 51 15.111 0.340 0.003 126.980 29 38 David Ragan Ford 62 15.120 0.349 0.009 126.905 30 15 Ross Chastain Chevrolet 64 15.121 0.350 0.001 126.896 31 36 United States Matt Tifft Ford 56 15.160 0.389 0.039 126.570 32 00 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 59 15.248 0.477 0.088 125.839 33 51 Gray Gaulding Chevrolet 9 15.257 0.486 0.009 125.765 34 88 Alex Bowman Chevrolet 2 15.631 0.860 0.374 122.756 35 77 Quin Houff Chevrolet 57 15.709 0.938 0.078 122.147

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Christopher Bell doesn't see "a hole" at JGR to move to Cup

Next article Joey Logano leads final Cup practice at Bristol

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Colton Herta “maybe underestimated the difference” from IndyCar – F2 boss

FIA F2

F2 FIA F2 2 h

Colton Herta “maybe underestimated the difference” from IndyCar – F2 boss

WEC Barcelona: Genesis secures maiden series pole from Toyota

WEC

WEC WEC

Barcelona

3 h

WEC Barcelona: Genesis secures maiden series pole from Toyota

Five-time IndyCar champion, first-time Indy NXT driver: Alex Palou tops IMS road course test

Indy NXT

IndL Indy NXT 4 h

Five-time IndyCar champion, first-time Indy NXT driver: Alex Palou tops IMS road course test

Gabriel Bortoleto on Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar's F1 success: 'Let's see where we are in 20 years'

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Singapore GP

5 h

Gabriel Bortoleto on Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar's F1 success: 'Let's see where we are in 20 years'

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts