Final Practice for Consumers Energy 400
Michigan International Speedway
Saturday, August 10 11:30 am ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
74-degree Air Temp I Feels like 74 degrees I Wind 5 mph WNW
Penalized Drivers
Michael McDowell, Austin Theriault, and Spencer Boyd were all penalized 15 minutes at the end of practice.
Top-20 Speeds (single lap)
Best Lap Averages
Items of Note:
- Aric Almirola started the practice gathering baseline info by himself.
- Joey Logano started with doing pit road speed tests to make sure the lights are all correct.
- The temps for this session are the closest to race temps that we’ll see.
- Martin Truex Jr. is working on working through traffic in this session, a bunch of Crew Chiefs thought he had the best car in the second session.
- Clint Bowyer is having to lift off the throttle in the corners but does get nice run on Kyle Larson in the straightaways.
- In the first seven minutes, there are two or three-car groups forming around the track and guys are using it to study the draft and how to pass.
- Kyle Larson says he can’t get any run in the draft but his car is handling better now and he can get to the bottom in 3 & 4 better as well. He can’t close in traffic though.
- Austin Dillon doesn’t like his car at the moment as it just didn’t run well in the main pack with Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr, Matt DiBenedetto, and the 37 of Chris Buescher.
- With 30 minutes to go in the session, there is a big pack doing race paced laps and are even going three-wide.
- Brad Keselowski got a bit loose on the bottom of Turn 1 but didn’t have any issues the rest of the lap.
- Denny Hamlin likes his car but has a bit of an issue with downforce in the pack, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing him down much as he’s made some of the most aggressive moves in the pack.
- Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr are leading the main pack right now and the 19-car gave a push to the 18-car and then was able to run him back down within one lap as the drivers continue to learn what they can and can’t do in the pack.
- Daniel Suarez got into the wall in Turn 2. His left rear tire went down and he slid and tapped the wall but didn’t do much damage to the right rear of the car. The tire went down on the second lap of a run on sticker tires.
- Jimmie Johnson feels like he loses front grip coming off the corners.
- With 15 minutes left in the session, Jones is the best in single, five-lap, 10 lap averages.
- Alex Bowman says the car drivers well and he is sitting in the top-five of lap averages. He also thinks the car will drive better the hotter it gets temp wise.
- Brad Keselowski wanted to know who had used the PJ1 and what was happening when they did it. Some of the cars haven’t been quite that good coming of PJ1.
- Daniel Suarez is having the car scanned to see how far off measurements it is before deciding if they are going to a back-up car or not.
- Kyle Busch used the PJ1 in both corners to make passes with two minutes left in practice and coming out of Turn 4 he made an outside pass on Joey Logano.
Through Final Practice
The gray spot in the L5 column for Truex is because his average finish in the last five August races here is 15.0 which is where he starts so with a difference of 0, it is grayed in.
Second Practice for Consumers Energy 400
Michigan International Speedway
Saturday, August 10 8:30 am ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
60-degree Air Temp I Feels like 60 degrees I Wind 1 mph NW
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized this session
Top-20 Speeds (single lap)
Best Lap Averages
Lap averages are in seconds.
Items of Note:
- Several drivers are starting this session with pit road speed checks to make sure the lights on the dash are correct.
- Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, and Jimmie Johnson are in a three-car draft with 45 minutes left in the session trying to learn how their cars handle in a bit of traffic.
- Jimmie Johnson complained of a hop through the corner that slowly went away as he tried to make a pass on Hamlin in that group.
- Ryan Newman doesn’t like the speed in his car, but his Crew Chief doesn’t want to make any changes this session because of the difference in race conditions.
- With 35 minutes left in practice, there is a huge race pack forming to see how their cars react in dirty air.
- Kyle Larson had a big wiggle as Erik Jones dove to the inside of the 42-car car and a few other cars are getting noticeably tight in the pack.
- The upper line of the racing pack is driving in the PJ1 on entry of Turn 1 and all the way through it in Turns 3 & 4.
- There were drivers taking it three-wide at the front of the pack on the front stretch.
- Chase Elliott ran his first run as a solo run to check ride heights and everything and then he joined the draft.
- Ryan Blaney pulled down and out of the way when Jimmie Johnson came up behind him, though don’t expect that in the race on Sunday,
- Joey Logano has had to be getting out of the throttle in the center of the corner and was passed by Kevin Harvick. He is bringing it to the garage for adjustments.
- A lot of the data from this practice is coming in the form of how the cars handle in the draft and not necessarily the speeds being recorded.
- Kurt Busch doesn’t like the handling of his car in the pack and wants a bit more speed. He said over the radio that the back is loose and not in track and the front is tight on corner entry.
- With 20 minutes left in the session, Kevin Harvick was a full mph faster than the next closest driver.
- Alex Bowman said his car is still tight center off but overall, he is happier with the handling of his car.
- Denny Hamlin is describing his car as "darty" in the handling department.
- With eight minutes left in the session, there is still a three-wide pack racing all around the track and drivers are still trying to learn what their cars are doing in traffic and dirty air.
- Kevin Harvick said he likes the speed in his car, but he still says track position is king. He wants the PJ1 to come down 3-4 feet in Turns 1 & 2. He wants three grooves instead of two.
First Practice for Consumers Energy 400
Michigan International Speedway
Friday, August 9 12:30 pm ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
75-degree Air Temp I Feels like 75 degrees I Wind 12 mph W
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized in this session
Top-20 Speeds (single lap)
Best Lap Averages
All drivers ran individual laps in this session.
Items of Note:
- Most of this practice will be spent in single-car mock qualifying runs is the expectation.
- The cars will be very trimmed out since it’s not an impound race and changes can be made between qualifying and practice and the race.
- Erik Jones was the first car on the track at the drop of the green flag for the session.
- There is PJ1 on the top-half of the track in the corners to try and widen the groove.
- The early mock qualifying runs with three minutes gone in the session are already a full second faster than the pole winning time in the June race.
- Clint Bowyer was rubbing the right rear track bar mount on the track in the early part of his run.
- Denny Hamlin has been the highest through Turn 3 & 4 thus far in the session and is nearly in the PJ1.
- Joey Logano got really loose in Turn 4 on a mock Q run and saved it but brought it to the garage for adjustments.
- Jimmie Johnson feels that his car is tight through Turns 3 & 4 and loose in Turns 1 & 2.
- Kyle Larson wanted to know where his line differed from others specifically in the first set of turns on the track.
- Brad Keselowski has run two laps this session and has been the fastest on both of those with his fastest lap currently sitting nearly an MPH faster than P2 on the chart with 35 minutes left.
- The drivers are focusing on lines a lot this week since they have been able to hold the cars wide open.
- Kyle Busch ran his fastest lap of practice with 22 minutes left in the session and still ran 18th fastest.
- Martin Truex Jr was just completing his first timed lap with 21 minutes left in the session.
- Jimmie Johnson felt better about the ride quality on his lap after the adjustments to fix the bumpiness and tightness but is still a bit loose.
- Daniel Hemric had something dragging on the rear of the car with 15 minutes left in the session and he will have a new spotter starting this week who has previously spotted for Matt Kenseth and others.
- Joey Logano came out of a turn in the traction compound and got a bit loose on exit.
- Chase Elliott was on a mock qualifying run that was sitting top-10 until a bobble at the end sapped his speed.
- Late in the session, Jimmie Johnson and Austin Dillon improved enough to take the top two spots with five minutes left in the session.
- In the last two minutes, Brad Keselowski took over the top spot only to lose it again to Austin Dillon.