Practice report
NASCAR Cup Indianapolis
Chip Ganassi Racing teammates top first Cup practice at Indy
Chip Ganassi Racing teammates Kyle Larson and Kurt Busch led the way in Saturday’s first NASCAR Cup Series practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Jim Utter
Edited: Sep 8, 2019, 9:36 AM
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Late in the 50-minute session, Larson jumped to the top of the leaderboard with an average lap speed of 185.025 mph.
In five series starts at Indy, Larson’s best finish was fifth in 2016.
Busch ended up second (184.763 mph) and former Brickyard 400 winner Brad Keselowski was third (184.600 mph). Chase Elliott and Bubba Wallace completed the top-five.
Rounding out the top-10 speeds were Clint Bowyer, Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, Jimmie Johnson and William Byron.
Johnson is trying to keep his streak alive of participating in every NASCAR playoff since the format was adapted in the 2004 season. He trails the 16th-place cutoff line by 18 points with only Sunday’s Brickyard 400 remaining in the regular season.
About 11 minutes into the session, a caution was displayed for a piece of debris located in Turn 2. The session returned to green several minutes later.
Matt DiBenedetto had to sit out the final 15 minutes of the practice session as part of a penalty for twice failing pre-race inspection last weekend at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
Cla # Driver Manufacturer Laps Time Gap Interval Mph 1 42 
Kyle Larson Chevrolet 14 48.642 185.025 2 1 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 12 48.711 0.069 0.069 184.763 3 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 16 48.754 0.112 0.043 184.600 4 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 22 48.832 0.190 0.078 184.305 5 43 Darrell Wallace Jr. Chevrolet 13 48.997 0.355 0.165 183.685 6 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 15 49.092 0.450 0.095 183.329 7 88 Alex Bowman Chevrolet 19 49.147 0.505 0.055 183.124 8 12 Ryan Blaney Ford 12 49.174 0.532 0.027 183.024 9 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 10 49.261 0.619 0.087 182.700 10 24 William Byron Chevrolet 22 49.285 0.643 0.024 182.611 11 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 17 49.288 0.646 0.003 182.600 12 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 11 49.312 0.670 0.024 182.511 13 20 Erik Jones Toyota 20 49.389 0.747 0.077 182.227 14 22 Joey Logano Ford 17 49.402 0.760 0.013 182.179 15 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 13 49.464 0.822 0.062 181.951 16 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 16 49.481 0.839 0.017 181.888 17 8 Daniel Hemric Chevrolet 17 49.608 0.966 0.127 181.422 18 10 Aric Almirola Ford 10 49.661 1.019 0.053 181.229 19 95 Matt DiBenedetto Toyota 13 49.719 1.077 0.058 181.017 20 19 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 17 49.781 1.139 0.062 180.792 21 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 13 49.837 1.195 0.056 180.589 22 41 
Daniel Suarez Ford 13 49.854 1.212 0.017 180.527 23 21 Paul Menard Ford 13 49.869 1.227 0.015 180.473 24 13 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 18 49.871 1.229 0.002 180.466 25 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 14 49.899 1.257 0.028 180.364 26 34 Michael McDowell Ford 9 50.221 1.579 0.322 179.208 27 6 Ryan Newman Ford 8 50.243 1.601 0.022 179.129 28 36 Matt Tifft Ford 10 50.298 1.656 0.055 178.934 29 38 David Ragan Ford 14 50.313 1.671 0.015 178.880 30 32 Corey Lajoie Ford 15 50.679 2.037 0.366 177.588 31 47 Ryan Preece Chevrolet 14 50.684 2.042 0.005 177.571 32 00 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 15 51.143 2.501 0.459 175.977 33 96 Parker Kligerman Toyota 10 51.249 2.607 0.106 175.613 34 51 B.J. McLeod Ford 3 51.403 2.761 0.154 175.087 35 77 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 9 51.565 2.923 0.162 174.537 36 54 J.J. Yeley Chevrolet 2 52.004 3.362 0.439 173.064 37 15 Ross Chastain Chevrolet 2 52.058 3.416 0.054 172.884 38 27 Ryan Sieg Chevrolet 3 52.309 3.667 0.251 172.055 39 52 Garrett Smithley Ford 2 52.385 3.743 0.076 171.805 40 53 Josh Bilicki Ford 7 52.757 4.115 0.372 170.593
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