By David Morgan, Associate Editor
SAN DIEGO – Kyle Larson kicked off the inaugural Anduril 250 weekend at Naval Base Coronado by leading the way in Friday’s lone NASCAR Cup Series practice session, setting the tone early for the weekend ahead.
Larson powered his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet around the 16-turn, 3.4-mile street course with a lap of two minutes, 16.588 seconds, jumping to the top of the board late in the session ahead of Todd Gilliland, Ty Gibbs, Connor Zilisch, and Carson Hocevar.
The remainder of the top-10 went to Corey Heim, Michael McDowell, Shane van Gisbergen, Austin Hill, and Alex Bowman.
Larson noted that Friday was a day of learning and while he is happy to lead the session, there is still a lot of speed to be found throughout the field as they get more laps and more track time.
“You’re definitely trying to balance it and for me, nobody wants to crash, but you’re also trying to get the most out of the session that you’re in to help the next session. So, it was a priority of mine to try and push things as much as I felt like I could,” Larson said.
“And I just felt like the faster you learn now, the faster you’re going to be. You’re just going to get yourself further away from some of the competitors. So at least on how quickly you can learn.
“So yeah, I’m happy to be P1 and I’m happy to feel mostly comfortable in some of, I’d say half the corners. And yeah, I still have room to go, but I think we all have a lot of room to go.”
With not a lot to go off of in regards to the Coronado track to prepare, Larson explained that real life differed wildly from what they were expecting from the simulator, with his team running some eight seconds slower on Friday versus what they were able to produce from the sim.
“Well, I would say it wasn’t all what I anticipated because yeah, I mean you spend time on the sim and the grip level was way different and consistent throughout the track, and we were eight seconds quicker on the sim, so that’s wild. Wildly different than real life,” said Larson.
“So yeah, just some of the back, probably third of the track is extremely slick and trying to just learn what it takes to get speed out of that is tough and not crash. You’ve seen a lot of Truck Series guys crash in the 13, 14, 15 exchange and that’s where it’s really slick, but there’s a lot of speed to be had there.
“I don’t know, it’s just very slick. And that was after listen to others interviews, I had that expectation, but you don’t know until you get out there of what level of slick it is, and it was more than what I was expecting.”
He added that aside from the concrete section of the track, Turn 1 will also be a watch area on Sunday and that there is no easy corner on this temporary street circuit.
“I feel like Turn 1 is still going to be treacherous because it’s bumpy and low grip and I feel like we’re crawling through there,” Larson explained.
“So. you’re just going to keep building speed and eventually you’re going to mess up. So that’s on my mind. Yes, that 13, 14, 15 exchange is very slick, but with it being slick and slower, you’re slower. So, I feel like so far you can catch things a little bit over there. But yeah, I mean it’s all, there’s not a corner, there’s not a part of the track that’s easy.”
Next up for the Cup Series will be qualifying to set the field for Sunday’s race, with time trials scheduled for 2:30 pm ET and the main event on Sunday rolling off at 4:00 pm ET. Both streaming on Amazon Prime.
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