Brad Keselowski Leads the Way in Daytona 500 Final Practice
That's it, on-track activity for the NASCAR Cup Series is complete until the green flag waves on Sunday's 67th annual Daytona 500. On Saturday afternoon, Brad Keselowski flexed his muscle as he turned the fastest lap of final practice ahead of The Great American Race.
Keselowski is behind the wheel of his backup car as his primary car was crashed during Thursday's Duel Qualifier race.
The driver of the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse turned a lap time of 46.558 seconds (193.307 mph), which was 0.008 seconds faster than Alex Bowman's quickest lap, which slotted Bowman second-fastest in the session.
Cole Custer was third-fastest in the No. 41 Haas Factory Team Ford, and he was followed by Justin Allgaier, and Kyle Larson inside the top-five of the speed chart on Saturday afternoon at the 2.5-mile speedway in Daytona Beach.
Corey LaJoie, Ryan Preece, Justin Haley, Chris Buescher, and Zane Smith rounded out the top-10 fastest drivers in the final tune-up for Sunday's Daytona 500.
In all, only 24 of the 41 drivers that will compete in Sunday's race took a lap time in Saturday's practice session. Several teams opted to utilize Friday's practice session as their unofficial final practice session, while several others took advantage of Saturday's session after extensive repairs were made to many of their cars following Thursday's wild Duel Qualifier Races.
As far as other notables in final practice, defending series champion and 2015 Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano ranked 12th with a 46.707 second lap time, Martin Truex Jr., driving the first NASCAR Cup Series race for TRICON Garage was 15th, Helio Castroneves clocked in 20th after competing in Saturday's ARCA Menards Series race, and defending Daytona 500 winner William Byron shook his car down, and was 23rd-fastest.
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Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.