Todd Gilliland, the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse, turned the fastest lap on Friday at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the final practice session ahead of Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250.
Gilliland’s fastest lap time of the day was a 94.432-second (93.180 mph) lap around the 2.42-mile road course in Mexico City. Gilliland was able to top Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain by 0.140 seconds to take the crown of fastest driver between the two practice sessions that were completed on Friday afternoon.
PRACTICE RESULTS: Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
The 25-year-old driver knows his team usually has speed when he comes to the racetrack, evidenced by his five career top-10s in road racing events, but he’s happy to have a car that appears to be among the quickest in Mexico City after the opening day of the race weekend.
“You know, just hopefully I can keep it within the walls of the racetrack, and keep it on the blacktop. So, that’s always my goal when I come to a road course, but yeah, we’ve had some good speed when we come to the road courses,” Gilliland said. “It feels really good to be in the ballgame with our Long John Silver’s Ford Mustang.”
Gilliland, who was carrying a smile on his face after final practice, was encouraged by the improvement his team found in his race car from practice 1, where he ranked 10th and final practice, where he clocked in P1.
“Yeah, overall, really happy with our execution of both practices. We made our car a lot better between practices,” Gilliland explained. “Made a mock [qualifying] run, so I’m not sure how many people made mock runs, to be fair, but still happy with it, and we’re in the ballgame. Hopefully, we’ll make some more good changes overnight. It’s exciting, it gives me a good feeling going into the next couple of days.”
Ty Gibbs was third-fastest in both practice sessions on Friday, and was 0.318 seconds off of Gilliland’s session-leading pace in final practice, while Ryan Blaney and Chris Buescher rounded out the top-five fastest cumulative speeds of the day.
Michael McDowell, who had the seventh-fastest cumulative lap time between the two practice sessions, led the way in opening practice ahead of Chase Briscoe, Gibbs, Austin Cindric, and Kyle Larson.
There were a few incidents throughout the two practice sessions on Saturday, the biggest one belonging to Noah Gragson. Gragson collided with the wall on the driver’s side of his race car while heading down the frontstretch early in the opening practice of the day.
Early trouble for @NoahGragson! pic.twitter.com/w8LMz1Tscu
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 13, 2025
Gragson’s No. 4 team will spend additional time in the garage on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning preparing their backup car after sustaining massive damage in the incident.
Carson Hocevar went for a spin, which brought out the caution later in Practice 1. Hocevar would suffer slight scuffing on the rear bumper cover of his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, but would drive away virtually unscathed other than that.
The yellow is out as the No. 77 of @CarsonHocevar goes for a spin. pic.twitter.com/6N1wmBsRaH
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 13, 2025
Cody Ware also went for a spin on his own in the opening practice session of the afternoon, but was able to avoid making contact with anything in the spin.
Hang on, Cody! ? pic.twitter.com/v7sbUREYYh
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 13, 2025
In the final practice, the only driver who suffered a spin was Ty Gibbs, who caught a chunk of curbing wrong and lost control. Gibbs would return to the track and would crank out the third-fastest lap in the session after his spin.
A rough ride for @TyGibbs. ? pic.twitter.com/rB8h0uMSj7
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 13, 2025
Next up for the NASCAR Cup Series this weekend will be qualifying for Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. That session will take place on Saturday, June 14, beginning at 2:05 PM ET. Qualifying can be streamed live on Prime Video.
