Colton Herta set the fastest time on the NTT INDYCAR SERIES Saturday morning practice session as he circled the 1.786-mile Exhibition Place street circuit with a time of 1:00.5657-seconds in his No. 26 Dallara-Honda. Herta won the last two poles of the season as well as here a year ago which makes the 23-year-old driver the pole favorite later today to set the grid for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto (1:30 p.m. ET, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network).
He was joined up front by teammate Kyle Kirkwood as Andretti went 1-2 for the second consecutive day. Kirkwood went 1:00.5972-seconds in his No. 27 Dallara-Honda which also makes him a pole favorite as the 24-year-old Floridan was fastest on Friday too on both tire compounds.
Ganassi teammates Marcus Ericsson (1:00.6350-seconds) and Alex Palou (1:00.6802-seconds) were third and fourth respectively while Pato O’Ward (1:00.7954-seconds) and Christian Lundgaard (1:00.7366-seconds) rounded out the top five.
We saw the first and only incident in this session when Felix Rosenqvist lost control of his No. 6 Dallara-Chevrolet in the Turn 5 marbles and slid into the outside wall with 7-minutes and 7-seconds left in the session.
Andretti Quick Again, Clear Pole Favorites
Andretti Autosport went 1-2 on Friday and 1-2 again on Saturday. In fact, a day after going 1-2-4-, they went 1-2-7 and look like the clear pole favorites. The question now is, can anyone top them?
Colton Herta was 4th, 1st in practice and has won the last two poles as well as here last year too. Kyle Kirkwood was 1st and 2nd respectively and also has a pole back in April at Long Beach.
Romain Grosjean was 2nd and 7th himself but has qualified in the top three for every street race this season.
The thing is, can they take control of qualifying later and avoid the back luck that’s been plaguing them for much of the last three years and also turn that into a Sunday win?
Andretti has had a car on the front row for 6 of the 9 races this season. They have 1 win to show for it.
Ericsson Leading A Ganassi Improvement
Marcus Ericsson looks like the Ganassi leader so far. He was sixth on Friday and now third on Saturday. Ericsson finished fifth last year and has 2 podiums (1st, 3rd) in 3 street course starts this season. Alex Palou went from 12th to fourth though and puts the pressure on the championship contenders that he’s going to still put up a fight this weekend.
He was sixth here a year ago but has also finished eighth, fifth and first respectively on street courses this season. He’s won 4 of the last 5 races on the season including three in-a-row.
Scott Dixon went from 11th on Friday to 8th on Saturday too. The “Ice Man” won in 2018, was runner-up in 2019 and won again in 2022 for three consecutive top two finishes on this track. Dixon also has 10 straight Toronto top 10’s including four wins and a runner-up in that span. He also qualifies well here too. He’s started in the top 10 in all 14 tries including 11 of which in the Fast 6. Since 2015, he’s qualified 4th, 1st, 5th, 2nd, 2nd and 2nd respectively. On street courses this season, Dixon has finished 3rd in St. Pete and while he was last in Long Beach, he had a top five car before that incident with O’Ward and fourth in Detroit.
Rookie Marcus Armstrong went from 22nd to 19th.
Quicker Times On Saturday
As you’d notice, the lap times were in the 60-seconds range on Saturday morning. That’s over a second quicker than the times on these same tires were on Friday. See, while the quickest times on Friday were 1:00.8075-seconds, those were on the green alternate tires. On Saturday, the top times were 1:00.5657-seconds but on the Firestone primary tires instead.
That’s two-fold however. There’s more grip on the track because of more tire rubber caked into the racing surface as well as Saturday’s practice taking place under overcast skies and cooler temperatures compared to sunny and warm on Friday.
However, if it remains like this, we could see lap times under a minute in qualifying later today.
Honda Still Manufacturer To Beat
Honda has won the last 5 street course races including 3-for-3 this season. On Saturday morning, they went 1-2-3-4-6-7-8 making them the ones to beat still not only for the pole, but for the race win tomorrow too.
Lundgaard Appears To Be Right
Christian Lundgaard didn’t share Graham Rahal’s pessimism for Toronto. See, Rahal in the last race at Mid-Ohio, said because of RLL’s struggles at Detroit, he felt like they could have some troubles this weekend in Toronto. However, Lundgaard didn’t necessarily agree noting that this was the turning point last year and felt like they did have better pace to perform.
So far, he’s right.
Lundgaard was 17th and 6th this weekend. Rahal was 16th and 13th. Jack Harvey went 21st and 16th.
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