Sprint Cup Practice 1 results from Chicagoland Speedway
Qualifying for Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway was rained out Friday afternoon, but the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racers managed to get an hour of practice in during the early evening.
And at the end of that hour, the driver atop the speed chart for the opening race for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup was a familiar name: Six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was the fastest of the cars setting time, lapping the 1.5-mile track at 183.780 miles per hour in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Right on his tail were a pair of Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas, Carl Edwards at 183.299 mph and Denny Hamlin at 182.927 mph.
Two-time Chicagoland winner Brad Keselowski was fourth in a Team Penske Ford, followed by Hendrick teammates Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman. At the very end of practice, Bowman spun coming out of Turn 4, but didn’t make contact with anything.
With qualifying rained out for the third consecutive year, the Chase drivers will start in positions 1-16, depending on Chase seeding. That puts No. 1 seed Kyle Busch on pole, flanked by the second seed, Brad Keselowski.
During Friday’s practice, Ty Dillon subbed for Regan Smith in the No. 7 Chevrolet because Smith was with his wife, who had gone into labor. Smith’s status for Sunday has not been determined.
There will be two more Cup practices on Saturday, the first at 10:30 a.m. ET, with Happy Hour at 1:30 p.m.
For full results from Friday evening's practice session, see below.
