Kevin Harvick fastest in Friday's Cup practice at Fontana

Harvick rocketed to the top of the leaderboard early in Friday’s lone 50-minute practice session with an average lap speed of 189.066 mph, which would set a track record if it took place in qualifying.

“I think as you look at the schedule for us, I think this is one that we’ve all had circled since I’ve been at SHR as a track that we hadn’t won at, that we felt like we’ve run well enough to win at,” Harvick said Friday at Auto Club Speedway.

“For me personally, it’s obviously close to home and I crashed coming to the green flag last year, so there’s got to be a little bit of redemption somewhere along the line to pick yourself back up and recover from that.”

Harvick’s Stewart-Haas Racing teammates, Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola, were second and third-fastest, respectively. Ryan Newman and Kyle Larson completed the top-five.

Rounding out the Top 10 were Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Austin Dillon and Alex Bowman.

Nearly 19 minutes into the session, Daniel Suarez slammed into the Turn 2 wall, doing significant damage to the right-rear area of his No. 19 Toyota. He had completed just two laps on the track.

The team immediately went to work to get the backup car prepared. The change will mean Suarez will have to start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field regardless of where he qualifies later Friday.

“When I hit a seam (on the track), it stepped out on me and I couldn’t do anything,” Suarez said.

Reed Sorenson was forced to sit out 15 minutes of Friday’s practice after his team failed pre-race inspection twice at Las Vegas (the most recent race in which the team completed).

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	3	38.082			189.066
2	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	4	38.255	0.173	0.173	188.211
3	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	5	38.311	0.229	0.056	187.936
4	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	6	38.339	0.257	0.028	187.798
5	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	8	38.350	0.268	0.011	187.744
6	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	14	38.437	0.355	0.087	187.320
7	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	5	38.438	0.356	0.001	187.315
8	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	5	38.474	0.392	0.036	187.139
9	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	6	38.496	0.414	0.022	187.032
10	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	9	38.551	0.469	0.055	186.766
11	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	5	38.557	0.475	0.006	186.737
12	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	5	38.566	0.484	0.009	186.693
13	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	5	38.569	0.487	0.003	186.678
14	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	7	38.616	0.534	0.047	186.451
15	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	5	38.630	0.548	0.014	186.384
16	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	6	38.642	0.560	0.012	186.326
17	22	Joey Logano	Ford	10	38.732	0.650	0.090	185.893
18	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	7	38.743	0.661	0.011	185.840
19	21	Paul Menard	Ford	5	38.800	0.718	0.057	185.567
20	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	5	38.840	0.758	0.040	185.376
21	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	2	38.847	0.765	0.007	185.342
22	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	9	38.877	0.795	0.030	185.199
23	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	5	38.900	0.818	0.023	185.090
24	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	7	38.915	0.833	0.015	185.019
25	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	13	38.921	0.839	0.006	184.990
26	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	8	38.924	0.842	0.003	184.976
27	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	4	39.073	0.991	0.149	184.270
28	6	Trevor Bayne	Ford	4	39.110	1.028	0.037	184.096
29	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	3	39.229	1.147	0.119	183.538
30	38	David Ragan	Ford	17	39.269	1.187	0.040	183.351
31	95	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	5	39.711	1.629	0.442	181.310
32	15	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	5	40.269	2.187	0.558	178.798
33	72	Cole Whitt	Chevrolet	4	40.716	2.634	0.447	176.835
34	00	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Chevrolet	14	41.163	3.081	0.447	174.914
35	51	Timmy Hill	Chevrolet	7	41.277	3.195	0.114	174.431
36	55	Reed Sorenson		1	42.197	4.115	0.920	170.628
37	23	Gray Gaulding	Toyota		0.000			0.000