Daniel Suarez Sweeps Friday Practice Sessions at Daytona

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — After the field for the Daytona 500 was set with Thursday night’s Can-Am Duels, the 40 cars that will contest the Great American Race took to the track for two practice sessions on Friday, with Daniel Suarez laying down the fastest times in both sessions.

Suarez led a Toyota trio at the top of the board in the first practice session, with a lap of 45.036 seconds, 199.840 mph, ahead of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, and 2017 series champion Martin Truex, Jr.

The remainder of the top-10 went to David Ragan, Danica Patrick, Darrell Wallace Jr., Kyle Busch, Brendan Gaughan, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Justin Marks.

A couple of hours later, it was the same story as Suarez was the fastest at 44.296 second, 203.179 mph, followed by the Chevrolet of Ryan Newman and the Ford of Michael McDowell.

AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Busch, Paul Menard, Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne, Brad Keselowski, and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top-10 in the second practice session.

Just one practice session remains to prepare for the Daytona 500, as that will take place at 12:05 pm ET Saturday.

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David Morgan is the Associate Editor for Motorsports Tribune. A 2008 graduate from the University of Mississippi, David has followed NASCAR since the early 90’s and became hooked at an early age after attending his first race at Talladega Superspeedway in 1993. He has traveled across the country since 2012 to cover some of the most prestigious events both IndyCar and NASCAR have to offer, with an aim to only expand on that in the near future.