Reddick paces Miami practice as Logano, Bell encounter issues

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Tyler Reddick was fastest in Saturday morning's NASCAR Cup Series practice session at Homestead-Miami Speedway at 167.770 mph (32.187 seconds).

Reddick (P) ran 31 laps in the session. But he laid down the fastest time on his first lap on track.

Ross Chastain was second fastest at 167.764 mph. Bubba Wallace was third at 167.754 mph, with Michael McDowell fourth at 167.676 mph, and Brad Keselowski fifth at 167.338 mph.

Erik Jones was sixth fastest at 167.338 mph, Martin Truex Jr. was seventh at 166.842 mph, and Denny Hamlin (P) was fastest at 166.646 mph. Joey Logano (P) and Zane Smith completed the top 10 at 166.636 mph and 166.543 mph respectively.

Logano did not run the full session. After logging 25 laps, Logano communicated to his Team Penske group that he might have a power steering issue.

"I wish I knew; we'd be able to fix it," Logano said of the issue. "It just seemed like it was locking up as it was going, so we're probably going to have to take a look at that after qualifying. It's not one of the approved changes, I don't believe, so we'll have to figure that one out later. But we can still qualify for a pit stall, at least.

"I think our Hunt Brothers Mustang is pretty good on the long run. That's kind of where we've been: good on the long run, not so great on the short run. So, we'll try to give the short run some love for tomorrow and get the power steering working as well."

Kyle Larson (P) was 14th fastest with Christopher Bell (P) 16th. Bell ran 17 laps and then reported his Toyota had "hit the ground" during a run. The team told Bell to come to pit road if it might be a tire issue, which turned out to be a flat right front.

"It's going to be hard to say but I don't think so," Bell said when asked by NBC Sports if the practice was wasted. "I think we got a number of competitive laps and we learned a little bit. I'm very thankful I was able to catch it and these guys gave me good direction to bring it in because if you drag the underbodies on these cars, it's pretty much a weekend ruiner. So, I think we got away with one there."

William Byron (P) was 26th fastest, Ryan Blaney (P) was 29th, and Chase Elliott (P) was 33rd. Elliott was the slowest of the eight playoff drivers.

Noah Gragson was fastest in the best 10 consecutive lap average. Gragson topped Keselowski, Reddick, Wallace, and Michael McDowell.

There are 38 drivers entered in the Straight Talk Wireless 400.

*P denotes playoff driver.