After 50 minutes of practice on Wednesday, February 11 for the NASCAR Cup Series at Daytona International Speedway, it was Austin Cindric leading the way. He and the No. 2 Team Penske Ford laid down a lap of 187.402 mph/48.02 seconds. Cindric is the 2022 Daytona 500 Champion.
The session consisted of mainly single car runs without drafting. Of the 45 entries, all but two cars took to the track. Michael McDowell in the No. 71 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports and the No. 34 Ford of Front Row Motorsports driven by Todd Gilliland remained in the garage area.
Rounding out the top-five fastest cars were Ross Chastain, Corey LaJoie, Bubba Wallace and Daniel Suarez. LaJoie is one of the “go or go home” cars needing to race their way into The Great American Race.
Austin Cindric Leads Daytona 500 Qualifying Practice
Cindric only made 13 laps around the 2.5-mile trioval during the session. Chastain took his No. 1 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing around the track at 186.931 mph/48.146 seconds. While drafting wasn’t in the game plan, it turns out a few of them accidentally end up in one during practice.
“I had people whipping behind me drafting, then another got in front of me,” Chastain said. “We ended up in a three-car drafts and we didn’t even want one. We were trying to space ourselves out and ended up in draft.”
Chastain made only six laps in practice.
Bubba Wallace Drafted for a PR Lap
Wallace pilots the No. 23 Toyota for Team 23XI and said he knew exactly what he was doing during the accidently drafting moments. He is in search of his Daytona 500 victory, just like Chastain.
“Yeah, pretty boring out there,” Wallace said. “Everyone is just trying to figure out what they have out there. I was going for a PR Lap,” he said with a smile referring to Public Relations purposes.
He made only eight laps during the session.
Rounding out the Top-10 Fastest
For qualifying on Wednesday night, the session is broken into two groups. The first will consist of everyone making a single-car run. Then, the top-10 fastest will go to the second session to determine the locked in front row for Sunday’s race.
In order it was Alex Bowman in the 48 Chevrolet, Corey Heim in the No. 67 Chevrolet, reigning NCS champion Kyle Larson in the No. 5 Chevrolet and two-time D500 champion Jimmie Johnson in the No. 84 Toyota.
How the Open Cars Faired
Posting top-10 practice speeds bode well for both LaJoie and Heim, who is the reigning NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Champion. Early this week, it was announced he’s
driving a part time NCS schedule for Trackhouse. LaJoie is on a one-off deal for RFK Racing for this race.
Justin Allgaier was 19th for JRM Motorsports, who had to race his way in last year, as well. Anthony Alfredo was 26th, Chandler Smith 35th, BJ McLeod 41st, Casey Mears 42nd and JJ Yeley was 43rd on the
speed chartTwo Opportunities to Make the Race
With only four open positions available to non-chartered teams, the eight teams looking to make it have two ways to do so.
The first opportunity is during the D500 Qualifying session Wednesday night. Two of the open teams will punch their ticket based of their speeds.
With only two spots available to make the D500 remaining, those will be determined through The Duels taking place on Thursday night. The remaining six will be distributed between the two races with half in Duel No. 1 the others in Duel No. 2.
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