Elliott leads Cup Series practice at Martinsville

Chase Elliott led practice for the NASCAR Cup Series elimination race at Martinsville Speedway, which he goes into needing to win to advance.

Elliott (P) put down a lap of 95.796mph (19.767s). The Hendrick Motorsports driver does have one prior win at Martinsville Speedway – the 2020 elimination race.

Denny Hamlin (P) was second fastest at 95.791mph and Ty Gibbs was third at 95.782mph. Bubba Wallace ran fourth at 95.738mph and Kyle Larson (P) completed the top five at 95.728mph. AJ Allmendinger was sixth fastest at 95.598mph.

William Byron (P) was seventh at 95.439mph, Ty Dillon eighth at 95.319mph, Joey Logano (P) ninth at 95.295mph and Todd Gilliland completed the top 10 at 95.285mph.

The defending winner at Martinsville, Ryan Blaney (P), was 11th fastest in practice. Blaney’s best lap was 95.276mph.

Christopher Bell (P) was 16th fastest with a lap of 95.180mph while the slowest playoff driver was Chase Briscoe (P) at 26th fastest (94.994mph).

There were no incidents in practice.

Larson was the fastest driver in the best 10 consecutive lap average over Elliott, Byron, Gibbs and Allmendinger. Blaney was sixth in the category and Hamlin was seventh.

There are 37 teams entered at Martinsville Speedway.