Practice report
NASCAR Cup Chicagoland
Kyle Busch leads Toyota 1-2-3-4 in first Chicagoland practice
Kyle Busch bumped Denny Hamlin from the top of the speed chart in the closing minutes of first practice at Chicagoland Speedway on Friday.
Lee Spencer
Edited: Sep 15, 2017, 6:59 PM
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Busch’s seventh circuit was his fastest — 184.143mph (29.325-seconds).
“At Chicago, we ran really well there in ’08 and, unfortunately, ’09, ’10 and ’11 we kind of a struggled,” who won here from the pole in 2008. “The last several years we ran well there but didn’t always get the finishes we deserved for how well we ran. We had a really solid top-five run going the last two years.”
Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Daniel Suarez also found speed towards the end of the 85-minute session and posted the second fastest lap — 183.418mph. Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Danica Patrick, Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10-single lap speeds.
In the first five minutes, Chris Buescher posted the fastest single-lap run of the session — 178.540mph followed by David Ragan (175.896mph). Michael McDowell quickly topped that mark with a lap of 177.020mph.
Ryan Blaney was the first playoff contender on the 1.5-mile track. In his second lap he ran 181.598mph to bump the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford to the top of the speed chart.
Ten minutes into the session, Blaney continued to lead followed by Aric Almirola (178.012mph), Trevor Bayne (177.038mph), McDowell, Joey Logano (176.800mph), Buescher, Ragan, and Danica Patrick (175.838mph). Sixteen cars completed initial laps.
Kurt Busch jumped up to second-quick with a lap of 179.289mph before the 12-minute mark. Jamie McMurray vaulted to fourth (178.071mph).
Denny Hamlin was the next playoff driver to make a move. Within the first 15 minutes, the No. 11 vaulted to P1 with a lap of 181.604mph. Blaney dropped to second followed by Kenseth (181.153mph), Harvick (180.971mph), Truex (180.415mph), Keselowski (179.904mph), Austin Dillon (179.796mph), Kurt Busch, Larson (179.099mph) and Erik Jones (178.330mph).
At the 20-minute mark, 31 drivers had taken laps. Jimmie Johnson joined the party shortly after. His first lap, was 12th-quick (178.200mph). He was bumped by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (fifth, 180.971mph) and Kyle Busch (sixth, 180.898mph).
After the first 30 minutes, Hamlin still led the way with his single-lap run followed by Blaney, Kenseth, Harvick, Stenhouse, Kyle Busch, Truex, Daniel Suarez (180.150mph), Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Kurt Busch, Larson, Jones, Johnson and McMurray. Larson’s 12 laps were the most completed at that moment.
Larson moved up to second with a lap of 182.556mph after 14 laps. Kyle Busch climbed to fifth (180.977mph), Harvick dropped to sixth followed by Stenhouse, Suarez, Truex and Jones 45 minutes into first practice.
NASCAR’s threw the first yellow flag for a towel on the track at the 55-minute mark. Chase Elliott’s 22 laps were the most completed just before the first hour in. He was 18th on the chart with a lap of 177.819mph.
When the track returned to green, several drivers executed mock qualifying runs. Truex improved to third quick with his lap of 182.014mph. Harvick leapfrogged over Truex and Larson with a lap of 182.642mph after 65 minutes. Elliott cruised up to fifth (181.892mph). Before the 70-minute mark, Kyle Busch captures P4 (182.550mph) and bumped Elliott outside of the top five.Although Kurt Busch’s Q-run was interrupted by another driver, he recovered with the ninth fastest lap (181.318mph).
With 10 minutes remaining, the top six remained in tact followed by Suarez, Blaney, Keselowski, Kurt Busch, Jones, Kenseth, McMurray, Austin Dillon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Kyle Busch took the top spot(184.143mph) with less than four minutes on the clock.
“P1,” the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing team told Busch.
Suarez mock qualifying run lifted the No. 19 car to second — 183.418mph. Patrick cracked the top 10 with alpa of 181.849mph — fast enough for eighth. Kurt Busch made a final attempt but couldn’t improve on tenth quick.
“That was tight and I had to lift a ton off of Turn 4,” Busch said. “You’ll see it.”
Keselowski knocked Busch to 11th as first practice came to an end.
Cla#DriverManufacturerLapsTimeGapIntervalMph 1 18 
Kyle Busch Toyota 7 29.325 184.143 2 19 
Daniel Suarez Toyota 7 29.441 0.116 0.116 183.418 3 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 8 29.521 0.196 0.080 182.921 4 78 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 9 29.531 0.206 0.010 182.859 5 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 5 29.566 0.241 0.035 182.642 6 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 18 29.580 0.255 0.014 182.556 7 24 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 26 29.688 0.363 0.108 181.892 8 10 Danica Patrick Ford 22 29.695 0.370 0.007 181.849 9 21 Ryan Blaney Ford 17 29.736 0.411 0.041 181.598 10 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 9 29.740 0.415 0.004 181.574 11 41 Kurt Busch Ford 9 29.740 0.415 0.000 181.574 12 31 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 18 29.758 0.433 0.018 181.464 13 77 Erik Jones Toyota 7 29.783 0.458 0.025 181.311 14 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 9 29.795 0.470 0.012 181.238 15 20 Matt Kenseth Toyota 5 29.809 0.484 0.014 181.153 16 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 14 29.820 0.495 0.011 181.087 17 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 18 29.833 0.508 0.013 181.008 18 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 8 29.848 0.523 0.015 180.917 19 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 9 29.869 0.544 0.021 180.789 20 22 Joey Logano Ford 28 29.900 0.575 0.031 180.602 21 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 18 29.905 0.580 0.005 180.572 22 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 16 29.981 0.656 0.076 180.114 23 6 Trevor Bayne Ford 18 29.983 0.658 0.002 180.102 24 95 Michael McDowell Chevrolet 15 29.997 0.672 0.014 180.018 25 5 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet 14 30.031 0.706 0.034 179.814 26 43 Aric Almirola Ford 14 30.073 0.748 0.042 179.563 27 47 A.J. Allmendinger Chevrolet 18 30.125 0.800 0.052 179.253 28 32 Matt DiBenedetto Ford 20 30.190 0.865 0.065 178.867 29 13 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 11 30.332 1.007 0.142 178.030 30 38 David Ragan Ford 18 30.332 1.007 0.000 178.030 31 23 Corey Lajoie Toyota 6 30.367 1.042 0.035 177.825 32 27 Paul Menard Chevrolet 17 30.443 1.118 0.076 177.381 33 83 Brett Moffitt Toyota 4 30.459 1.134 0.016 177.288 34 34 Landon Cassill Ford 17 30.477 1.152 0.018 177.183 35 55 Gray Gaulding Toyota 9 31.114 1.789 0.637 173.555 36 15 Reed Sorenson Toyota 19 31.265 1.940 0.151 172.717 37 33 Jeffrey Earnhardt Chevrolet 17 31.305 1.980 0.040 172.496 38 72 Cole Whitt Chevrolet 15 31.522 2.197 0.217 171.309 39 66 Timmy Hill Chevrolet 4 31.693 2.368 0.171 170.385 40 51 Ray Black Jr. Chevrolet 18 32.598 3.273 0.905 165.654
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