Daniel Suarez tops incident-marred Pocono Cup practice

Suarez’s average lap speed of 172.516 mph led the way in the 55-minute session on Saturday. William Byron was second (172.404 mph) and Aric Almirola ended up third (172.401 mph).

Martin Truex Jr. was fourth and Clint Bowyer completed the top-five, putting three Stewart-Haas Racing drivers in the top-five.

Rounding out the top-10 were Jimmie Johnson, Erik Jones, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch (who has won the last two Pocono races) and Matt DiBenedetto.

About 14 minutes into the session, Kyle Larson got loose in Turn 2, hit the wall and heavily damaged his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

Larson’s team immediately brought out his backup car, which means he will have to start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field. It’s the second consecutive week Larson has wrecked in practice.

“I’m just disappointed in myself,” Larson said. “I got really loose and then over-corrected some and then spun to the inside and hit the wall. I just hate that I did that. We only have today for practice and don’t have much time between practices.

“We probably won’t have much laps in the backup car. I was happy last week with (the team’s) efforts to get that one ready and how good it was in the race as well. Hopefully, we can do it again. 

“I just got to stop being stupid.”

About 33 minutes into the session, Chase Elliott got loose in Turn 1 and also hit the wall, leaving his No. 9 Chevrolet heavy right-side damage. Elliott will also move to a backup car and have to start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field.

“I just made a mistake and crashed,” Elliott said. “I put myself in a pretty poor situation there in practice.”

Corey LaJoie also got into the Turn 2 wall during the session but his team was attempting to repair the damage.

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	41	Daniel Suarez		Ford	17	52.169			172.516
2	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	18	52.203	0.034	0.034	172.404
3	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	14	52.204	0.035	0.001	172.401
4	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	23	52.208	0.039	0.004	172.387
5	14	Clint Bowyer		Ford	23	52.219	0.050	0.011	172.351
6	48	Jimmie Johnson		Chevrolet	13	52.307	0.138	0.088	172.061
7	20	Erik Jones		Toyota	24	52.465	0.296	0.158	171.543
8	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	21	52.629	0.460	0.164	171.008
9	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	16	52.726	0.557	0.097	170.694
10	95	Matt DiBenedetto		Toyota	15	52.742	0.573	0.016	170.642
11	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	20	52.745	0.576	0.003	170.632
12	8	Daniel Hemric		Chevrolet	22	52.759	0.590	0.014	170.587
13	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	23	52.818	0.649	0.059	170.396
14	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	19	52.848	0.679	0.030	170.300
15	21	Paul Menard		Ford	20	52.918	0.749	0.070	170.074
16	22	Joey Logano		Ford	20	52.931	0.762	0.013	170.033
17	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	22	52.974	0.805	0.043	169.895
18	47	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	21	53.047	0.878	0.073	169.661
19	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	12	53.052	0.883	0.005	169.645
20	88	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	17	53.065	0.896	0.013	169.603
21	42	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	2	53.186	1.017	0.121	169.217
22	37	Chris Buescher		Chevrolet	18	53.293	1.124	0.107	168.878
23	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ford	14	53.365	1.196	0.072	168.650
24	38	David Ragan		Ford	17	53.397	1.228	0.032	168.549
25	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	15	53.430	1.261	0.033	168.445
26	13	Ty Dillon		Chevrolet	17	53.481	1.312	0.051	168.284
27	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	17	53.483	1.314	0.002	168.278
28	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	10	53.512	1.343	0.029	168.187
29	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.		Chevrolet	16	53.538	1.369	0.026	168.105
30	36	Matt Tifft		Ford	16	53.735	1.566	0.197	167.489
31	32	Corey Lajoie		Ford	6	54.419	2.250	0.684	165.383
32	00	Landon Cassill		Chevrolet	15	54.849	2.680	0.430	164.087
33	53	Josh Bilicki		Chevrolet	12	54.893	2.724	0.044	163.955
34	15	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	13	54.992	2.823	0.099	163.660
35	27	Reed Sorenson		Chevrolet	9	55.365	3.196	0.373	162.558
36	51	B.J. McLeod		Ford	10	55.504	3.335	0.139	162.150
37	77	Quin Houff		Chevrolet	7	55.690	3.521	0.186	161.609
38	52	Austin Theriault		Ford	17	56.881	4.712	1.191	158.225