The weekend’s final practice session has been completed and the Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have put their Chevrolets at the top of the charts. Separated by only 0.003 seconds on the speed chats, Johnson took the claim of fastest in final practice, while Gordon was forced to settle with second.

“The last couple years it’s been a great track for us,” Johnson said of Richmond. “I’m looking forward to a good qualifying effort and a good race. I’ve always loved watching the races here and usually watched it as I was being lapped and running mid-pack to the back,” the three-time defending Cup Series champion joked. “So now it’s nice to be up there racing for the wins and I’m looking forward to Saturday night.”

While Johnson has three wins in the last four races at Richmond, he struggled early in his career to get his arms wrapped around the .75-mile short-track. With a teammate who has as much consistent success as Gordon – who has two wins, twelve top-5s and twenty top-10s in twenty-two starts – Johnson has picked up a few tips here and there.

“This is a track that you’ve gotta have a lot of short-track experience in general coming in here from other series as well as understanding this race track,” Gordon explained. “There’s a lot of different things about this race track that sometimes guys learn it quick and sometimes guys don’t.”

Red Bull Racing’s Brian Vickers was third-quick in the final session with a lap of 21.666 seconds at a speed of 124.619 mph. David Reutimann was fourth fastest and points leader Kurt Busch rounded out the top-5.

Jeff Burton, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin and Kasey Kahne made up the remainder of the top-10.

Qualifying for Saturday night’s Crown Royal Presents The Russ Friedman 400 is scheduled for 5:40pm E.T. Friday night.

COMPLETE NASCAR CUP SERIES PRACTICE RESULTS

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