Hamlin, Sauter top Talladega day 1

Hamlin topped both the morning and afternoon single-car running sessions, setting his best lap in the morning with a time of 50.517 seconds, at an average speed of 189.560 mph at the wheel of the No. 11 FedEx Chevrolet Impala SS.

His Joe Gibbs Racing teammate JJ Yeley was second fastest, only 69 hundredths of a second slower than Hamlin and just four thousandths quicker than Tony Raines' Hall of Fame Racing Chevrolet.

Hamlin said he didn't notice a big difference with the Car of Tomorrow at the 2.66-mile superspeedway relative to what he had been used to with the old car. Today was the first time that the CoT ran at a superspeedway.

"Well, I really didn't notice that much difference," Hamllin said. "Not really as much as what I thought. Of course you feel a lot of wind buffering in this car versus the other car, just with the huge hole that it punches in the air. Really other than that, the way it actually steers and everything is not that much different."

Juan Pablo Montoya was also among the fastest in the single-car runs, setting the fourth fastest lap in the morning and the third in the afternoon. He was the fastest Dodge runner for most of the day and was equally fast in the draft, setting the fifth fastest time.

It was Johnny Sauter however who emerged as the quickest driver of the day overall, topping the drafting session in the afternoon with a laptime of 48.816 seconds, at an average speed of 196.165 mph. He was the only driver to lap above the 195 mph bracket, while Martin Truex Jr was second at 195.564.

NASCAR is likely to run a restrictor with smaller holes for the second day of testing, as speeds in the draft arguably got too high. Today the cars ran a restrictor with one-inch holes, combined with different rear wing angles.

"We found packages that would really let the car suck up well and create a lot of passing," said Jimmie Johnson. "The problem was [that] it pushed that threshold for the speed up too high, and we had to come down on restrictor plate and other things to get the cars back where they needed to be speed-wise.

"When we had the cars at the right speed for safety, it took out some of the passing. So I'm hopeful today with almost a year's time gone by now that NASCAR's been able to find a little better package, and together as a whole, it's a better drafting package here where we can still have passing but keep the speeds down where they need to be."

Of the Nextel Cup newcomers, Jacques Villeneuve was fastest among the Toyotas in the draft ending up 11th but not setting representative times in the single car runs. Sam Hornish Jr was 37th on the single car runs, almost eight tenths slower than Hamlin and was not among the fastest runners in the draft.

The only incident of the day was caused by Reed Sorenson, who hit the wall between turns one and two during the final session of the day. The Ganassi driver was uninjured in the crash.

Testing at Talladega continues tomorrow.