Two practice sessions are in the books this weekend in Toronto. So is qualifying to set the field for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto (1:30 p.m. ET, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network). Now, who wins?

18 of the last 20 races here, including 29 of the last 32 races were won from the top seven. The only other starting spots since (13th in 2001, 11th in 2014 and 11th again in 2015).

However, on street courses in general in INDYCAR now, the winners lately have come from 2021: 15th (Belle Isle 1), 16th (Belle Isle 2), 18th (Nashville), 14th (Long Beach).

• 2022: 1st (St. Pete 2022), 2nd (Long Beach 2022) and 16th (Belle Isle 2022), 2nd (Toronto), 14th (Nashville)
• 2023: 4th (St. Pete), 1st (Long Beach), 1st (Detroit).

If you go back to the start of the 2019 season, we’ve had 19 races on these tracks with 11 different winners. Josef Newgarden (4 wins), Scott Dixon (3 wins), Marcus Ericsson (3 wins) and Colton Herta (2 wins) are the only multi-time winners with 2 of Newgarden’s 4 wins coming in St. Pete.

The big teams are strong on them with Penske winning 7 of those last 19 races, Ganassi with 6 and Andretti with 4. Arrow McLaren SP is the only other team to have won.

Penske won 3 of the 5 last year with Ganassi and Scott Dixon taking the other two. Ganassi (Marcus Ericsson, Alex Palou) is 2-for-3 this year with being winners in 4 of the last 5 while Andretti won the other this season in Long Beach.

Honda is a perfect 3-for-3 on street courses this season with taking 6 of the 9 podiums too. It went Ganassi-McLaren-Ganassi in St. Pete, Andretti-Andretti-Ganassi in Long Beach and Ganassi-Penske-McLaren the last time out in Detroit.

This has become an Andretti vs. Ganassi battle on street courses.

In Long Beach, the two organizations swept the entire top five of the finishing order and had 6 of the top 8 finishers in general.

In Detroit, Penske and McLaren stormed back with Penske having all 3 cars in the top seven of the starting lineup and McLaren with all three in the top 12 while Andretti was 3-12-17-24 too. Ganassi had three of their cars start in the top six.

Prediction

1. 3 McLaughlin – He went on an end of season terror last year and has won on a street course in the past (St. Pete). With a runner-up starting spot, why not a second? This was his 7th front row starting spot. 5 of the previous 6 he finished in the top two including three of which being wins.
2. 8 Ericsson – Penske-Ganassi has finished 1-2 in each of the last 4 races, why not a 5th? Ericsson was 6th and 3rd in practice and starts 4th.
3. 6 Rosenqvist – 3rd here last year. 3rd on the last street course in Detroit. 3rd in practice on Friday. He starts 5th.
4. 9 Dixon – This has been a great track for him so why not an 11th straight top 10 here.
5. 27 Kirkwood – 1st and 2nd in practice, I just think starting 8th and behind all four of these drivers hurts his finish.