Clint Bowyer leads first practice at Sonoma as Ford sweeps top three

Bowyer, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ most recent race winner, posted an average lap speed of 93.590 mph very early in Friday’s first practice session and it stood the remainder of the one hour, 15-minute session.

“It is the short track of road racing,” Bowyer said of Sonoma. “And who am I to say that? I am not a road racer and haven’t really been on anything other than these two that we race on.

“It has always felt like a little bullring short track somewhere in the Midwest. It just happens to be that you go right and shift gears all at the same time.”

Ryan Blaney ended up second (93.546 mph) and Joey Logano third (93.172 mph) as Ford teams swept the top three positions.

Jamie McMurray was fourth and Daniel Suarez completed the top five. The rest of the Top 10 were Jimmie Johnson, Michael McDowell, Martin Truex Jr., A.J. Allmendinger and Ryan Newman.

Last year’s race winner, Kevin Harvick, ended up 12th. Brad Keselowski and Austin Dillon completed the most laps in the session (23 each).

About 20 minutes into session, Kasey Kahne spun off course in Turn 3 but was able to continue on without incident.

“I felt a slight gain in Turn 6,” Kahne said over his radio after his spin. “Then that was it. I couldn't get it to cut in Turn 7.”

Erik Jones also went off course about 30 minutes into the session but with no apparent damage to his No. 20 Toyota.

Caution was displayed on the course about 49 minutes into the session for debris on the track. It appeared a brake hose broke off the car of Cody Ware.

Three drivers – Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson and Kahne – were forced to sit out the final 15 minutes of practice for failing pre-race inspection twice at Michigan.

David Ragan was forced to sit out the final 30 minutes of the session after his team failed pre-race inspection three times at Michigan.

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	14	1'16.547			93.590
2	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	15	1'16.583	0.036	0.036	93.546
3	22	Joey Logano	Ford	18	1'16.890	0.343	0.307	93.172
4	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	15	1'16.992	0.445	0.102	93.049
5	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	14	1'17.243	0.696	0.251	92.746
6	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	13	1'17.314	0.767	0.071	92.661
7	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	14	1'17.323	0.776	0.009	92.650
8	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	14	1'17.353	0.806	0.030	92.614
9	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	13	1'17.368	0.821	0.015	92.596
10	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	16	1'17.369	0.822	0.001	92.595
11	21	Paul Menard	Ford	13	1'17.427	0.880	0.058	92.526
12	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	14	1'17.458	0.911	0.031	92.489
13	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	12	1'17.478	0.931	0.020	92.465
14	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	17	1'17.512	0.965	0.034	92.424
15	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	11	1'17.523	0.976	0.011	92.411
16	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	11	1'17.588	1.041	0.065	92.334
17	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	16	1'17.608	1.061	0.020	92.310
18	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	12	1'17.744	1.197	0.136	92.149
19	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	19	1'17.784	1.237	0.040	92.101
20	38	David Ragan	Ford	14	1'17.816	1.269	0.032	92.063
21	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	18	1'17.892	1.345	0.076	91.974
22	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	23	1'17.932	1.385	0.040	91.926
23	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	23	1'18.059	1.512	0.127	91.777
24	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	17	1'18.060	1.513	0.001	91.776
25	95	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	7	1'18.076	1.529	0.016	91.757
26	72	Cole Whitt	Chevrolet	11	1'18.268	1.721	0.192	91.532
27	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	11	1'18.350	1.803	0.082	91.436
28	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	12	1'18.390	1.843	0.040	91.389
29	96	Parker Kligerman	Toyota	13	1'18.421	1.874	0.031	91.353
30	6	Trevor Bayne	Ford	13	1'18.434	1.887	0.013	91.338
31	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	23	1'18.581	2.034	0.147	91.167
32	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	17	1'18.608	2.061	0.027	91.136
33	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	21	1'18.795	2.248	0.187	90.919
34	15	Justin Marks	Chevrolet	13	1'19.284	2.737	0.489	90.359
35	23	Gray Gaulding	Toyota	10	1'19.482	2.935	0.198	90.134
36	51	Chris Cook	Ford	7	1'19.851	3.304	0.369	89.717
37	52	Cody Ware	Chevrolet	8	1'21.299	4.752	1.448	88.119
38	00	Tomy Drissi	Chevrolet	19	1'22.569	6.022	1.270	86.764