Last week’s winner at Daytona, Aric Almirola, crashed with around 20 minutes remaining in second practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this morning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Going into Turn 3, Almirola lost control, spun, and then slammed into the wall. The impact flattened the left side of his primary No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford, and has forced RPM to roll out his backup car.
Almirola later confirmed that a blown tire was the cause of his crash, making him the second driver this weekend to crash after suffering a tire failure. Joey Logano lost his left-rear and hit the wall during Friday’s first practice.
Logano also needed a backup car but was able to qualify sixth yesterday for the Camping World RV Sales 301. Almirola qualified 19th, but will have to start from the back of the grid for Sunday’s main event since his incident took place after qualifying.
“It was fine down the back straightaway and right about the time I was getting on the brakes into Turn 3, I felt [the tire] go down and I was just along for the ride,” Almirola told Fox Sports.
“It’s disappointing. Our [car] was decent – we still had some work to do, but it was decent…We’re gonna have to make our backup car work for us.
“Our backup car may be even better than our primary car. We were struggling a little bit to get this [primary] car to go across the center of the corner like we wanted it to.”
Brad Keselowski was fastest in the 50-minute practice session with a lap of 133.745 mph around the Magic Mile. Jamie McMurray was second-quickest (133.086), followed by Jeff Gordon (133.035), Denny Hamlin (132.901), and Kyle Larson (132.868).
Kyle Busch, who will start on the pole for Sunday’s race, was 19th on the time sheets this morning (132.158). Sprint Cup final practice is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. ET.
NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES AT NEW HAMPSHIRE – SECOND PRACTICE TIMES
