Todd Gilliland sets the fastest lap in Mexico City NASCAR Cup practice

NASCAR held two practice sessions on Friday as Cup drivers and teams learned their way around Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City.

In the first session, drivers quickly found the limits with several locking up and utilizing the run-off area around the road course. Unfortunately for Noah Gragson, he found the outside wall, damaging his No. 4 Front Row Motorsports Ford. The team will be going to a backup car.

Cody Ware and Carson Hocevar also spun out, but both drivers avoided significant damage.

Michael McDowell led the way with a 1:34.024s lap in the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, followed by Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs, Austin Cindric, and Kyle Larson.

Michael McDowell, Spire Motorsports Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

After a bit of an intermission, a shorter second session got underway. All drivers with the exception of Gragson took part. Gibbs, who ran the most laps in the first session (22), went for a wild spin after bottoming out over the curbs.

Other than that, there were no other notable incidents. Gilliand set the fastest lap of the day in a mock qualifying run with a 1:33.496s lap. Ross Chastain was second on the time sheets, Gibbs third, Ryan Blaney fourth, and Chris Buescher fifth. All of them ran faster than McDowell’s fast time from the first session.

In this session, a lot more drivers decided to run ten consecutive laps and leading that category in ten-lap averages was Christopher Bell, followed by Chastain and Buescher.

“Hopefully, I can just keep it within the walls of the race track and keep it on blacktop,” Gilliland told NASCAR on Prime after going fastest of all drivers. “That’s always my goal when coming to a road course. But yeah, we’ve had some good speed when it comes to road courses, so it feels really good to be in the ball game with our Ford Mustang. It’s tough with a teammate [Gragson] going to a backup car — our whole team is going to have to pull together. Overall, really happy with our execution of both practices. We made our car a lot better between practices.

“Made a mock run and I’m not sure how many people made mock runs, to be fair. Still happy with it … Hopefully, we’ll make some more good changes overnight and it’s exciting. Gives me a good feeling going into the next couple of days.”

Daniel Suarez, who is the only Mexican-born driver in the Cup Series field, timed in 12th during the first practice and ninth in the second practice session.