Through Qualifying
Keep in mind it is an impound race and the qualifying positions are subject to change if they fail tech inspection once on Sunday.
Final Practice for Camping World 400
Chicagoland Speedway
Saturday, June 29 2:00 pm ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
Rising temps compared to last session with temps in the cars well over 100 degrees.
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized for this session
Top-20 Speeds (single lap)
Best Lap Average
Items of Note:
- Clint Bowyer says its vital to get yourself in dirty air in practice and spend a lot of the practice back in the pack. You also want to know what your car will be like in clean air. He feels his car is good so far and he will start the practice in Q-trim.
- Alex Bowman was able to make a pass on Kyle Busch and Busch lost the front of the car and drove up the track a bit but didn’t hit anything.
- Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano are in a racing group and treating this like it’s a plate race this weekend.
- Kyle Busch doesn’t like the way his car is turning and he’s losing drive in the right front and left rear so they are making wedge adjustments to the car in the garage.
- Kevin Harvick likes the way his car is handling the bumps on the track so far this weekend and is in the middle of a long run to start this practice.
- Several drivers have had issues getting to pit road at speed in this session which could make the race interesting from a pit perspective.
- There have been different strategies with this session because of the impound after qualifying that’s happening. Some cars are doing several mock qualifying runs and some are doing long race runs.
- Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney were working on how to deal with runs from other cars under green flag conditions and how to get the momentum from those runs.
- Ryan Blaney said his car is very tight in traffic and that he can’t do much with it directly behind another car.
- Denny Hamlin is doing a long run on sticker tires with 13 minutes left in practice to see what that does to his lap averages.
- Kevin Harvick put sticker tires on his car for the last run of the day and with 12 minutes left he was atop the five-lap and 10-lap averages with those sticker tires.
- Ford is on top of the five-lap, 10-lap, and 15-lap averages with 6 minutes left in the session.
- In post practice interviews, Kevin Harvick was just talking about what he wanted to learn from a driving perspective as in how long he can drive what line on the track and never used the word tight or loose.
- Chase Elliott said he was happy with the handling of his car in this session.
- Austin Dillon reported changes in his handling throughout the session and it went from loose to tight.
- Clint Bowyer finished the session in second and was just as happy with the car as he was before the session started in the pre-practice interview.
Opening Practice Camping World 400
Chicagoland Speedway
Saturday, June 29 11:05 am ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
It is hot in Chicago this weekend. Mid-90s with heat index in the low-100s.
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized this session.
Top-20 Speeds (single-lap)
Best Lap Averages
Items of Note:
- There are brand new tire compounds on both the left and right side tires this week that were brought by Goodyear.
- They are in the 550 horsepower aero ducts package this week that has been used on four prior 1.5-mile tracks this season.
- Crew Chiefs are focusing on having the cars be good on the top and the bottom since the biggest problem here is dirty air that can slow you quite a bit.
- Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Joey Logano are in a racing group in the first seven minutes as they are trying to run all over the track to see what they have in groups and what kind of moves they can pull off.
- Ryan Blaney has had the fastest lap of the session for the first 15 minutes of practice after running it in the first couple of minutes.
- Alex Bowman said he is punishing the bumps in the Turn 1 & 2 corner and in the first 15 minutes of the session he has the best five and 10-lap averages.
- William Byron did a speed test on pit road and was too fast in the last couple of sections of pit road and Chad Knaus pointed it out to him.
- There have been 27 pit road speeding penalties total in the last three races at Chicago.
- Kurt Busch is having issues with the bumps on the track and feels like his splitter is being scrapped on them.
- Martin Truex Jr. agrees with Kurt Busch that it is rougher than any other track and he thinks it’s because of the higher downforce on the cars. He likes the lower grip type tracks like Chicago and feels that he’s good a saving tires for the long run.
- Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, and Aric Almirola are all in the top-10 on the speed charts with 20 minutes left in the first practice and they appear pretty happy with the speed in their cars.
- Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, and Ryan Blaney give Penske three cars in the top-nine with 15 minutes to go including Blaney and Keselowski being P1 and P4 respectively.
- There is a group of 10-15 cars that are out racing as the session reaches 13 minutes left.
- Alex Bowman has a vibration in his car and in the garage they are changing the drive shift in the 88-car to try and get rid of the vibration.
- Ryan Newman is getting practice passing people as he’s in the middle of the racing group on the track.
- Denny Hamlin is focusing on getting all of the small stuff out of the way in this session and then they are going to use Happy Hour to focus on race setup and speed. He feels that his car is “exceptionally good” at this point.
- In the last few minutes of the session several drivers shot to the top of the chart with mock qualifying runs.