Haas star tops timesheets in Iowa Corn 350 practice

Stewart-Haas’ Noah Gragson led Friday's practice timesheets at the Iowa Speedway for the inaugural Iowa Corn 350 in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Following the team’s recent announcement that they're pulling out of NASCAR at the end of the season, Stewart-Haas Racing found themselves back in the spotlight.

READ MORE: Iowa Corn 350 NASCAR Cup Series: Start times, schedule and how to watch

The session wasn’t without issue though, as five drivers suffered from flat tyres during the 50-minute session.

The inaugural event, based at Newton, Iowa, will see the crews and drivers race it out around a 0.875-mile oval circuit on race day - providing the weather holds out, with Saturday's qualifying session hit by rain.

Gragson leads practice in Iowa

Gragson was the fastest driver out on the track with a top speed of 137.988mph. The Las Vegas-born driver edged out the likes of Ty Gibbs, Alex Bowman, Justin Haley and Chase Elliott, who completed the top five respectively.

Gibbs was the first driver to encounter a tyre problem, with a flat right-front, before his teammate Bell took a heavy hit in the wall after a tyre was blown. Fortunately, Bell was okay and able to bring his Toyota back to Pit Road.

Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric and Tyler Reddick also suffered tyre problems throughout the session.

Chastain, Harrison Burton, Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon and Chase Briscoe completed the top 10, in that order.

The remaining drivers down the field were able to keep within Gragson’s best time out on track apart from 36th-placed Erik Jones, who found himself 1.036s off the pace.

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