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David Malsher-Lopez

Toronto IndyCar: VeeKay leads incident-packed warm-up

The Dutch ace, who will start only 20th after struggling throughout practice and qualifying, this morning lapped the course in 59.8987sec on a set of Firestone’s softer alternate tires.

That was enough to see him shade Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport-Honda, who was second fastest and the only other driver to duck under the 60sec barrier.

Alex Palou, around whom so much controversy and speculation has swirled this week, and who has endured a torrid couple of days in practice and qualifying for his first race in Toronto, was able to edge his Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda teammate Scott Dixon for third fastest spot, but he will start the race from 22nd on the grid, whereas Dixon will start from the front row.

Championship leader Marcus Ericsson made it three Ganassi cars in the top six, separated from his teammates by Josef Newgarden.

Pole-sitter Colton Herta stalled as he tried to leave from his difficult pitbox and later caused a red flag when he skated into the run-off at Turn 3 and stalled.

Graham Rahal, who had the pace to reach the Firestone Fast Six but was one of those drivers who had his Q1 fast lap ruined by Kyle Kirkwood crashing and causing a red flag, passed the AJ Foyt Racing-Chevrolet driver down to Turn 3 in warm-up but on the dirtier inside line he locked up and nosed into the tire-wall. He then moved to the top of the times before another lock-up persuaded him to pit, in the belief that he had a braking issue, possibly a result of them getting overheated too easily. He still ended up seventh fastest, just ahead of another frustrated qualifier, Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing-Honda, who is the defending race-winner here.

Will Power, another one whose qualifying hopes were ended by Kirkwood’s faux pas, outbraked himself at Turn 3, went down the run-off and then had his Team Penske-Chevrolet restarted by the AMR Safety Team. Although he wound up only 24th fastest, Peacock revealed that he was the only driver who ran 15 consecutive laps to get a read on tire behavior. He will be trying to climb from 16th on the grid.

Toronto native Devlin DeFrancesco, whose Andretti Autosport-Honda will start from his highest grid position of the season, 12th, also visited the Turn 3 run-off but was able to resume without causing a red flag.

The Honda Indy Toronto begins at 3.30pm local (Eastern) time, and is being broadcast only via live streaming in the U.S. and Canada.

Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap Mph
1 Netherlands Rinus van Kalmthout United States Ed Carpenter Racing 24 59.8987   107.341
2 United States Alexander Rossi United States Andretti Autosport 22 59.9439 0.0452 107.260
3 Spain Alex Palou United States Chip Ganassi Racing 20 1'00.1391 0.2404 106.912
4 New Zealand Scott Dixon United States Chip Ganassi Racing 23 1'00.2080 0.3093 106.790
5 United States Josef Newgarden United States Team Penske 20 1'00.2822 0.3835 106.658
6 Sweden Marcus Ericsson United States Chip Ganassi Racing 25 1'00.3365 0.4378 106.562
7 United States Graham Rahal United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 23 1'00.4145 0.5158 106.425
8 France Simon Pagenaud United States Meyer Shank Racing 20 1'00.4477 0.5490 106.366
9 United Kingdom Jack Harvey United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 25 1'00.5410 0.6423 106.202
10 United Kingdom Callum Ilott United States Juncos Hollinger Racing 23 1'00.5765 0.6778 106.140
11 United States Colton Herta United States Andretti Autosport 18 1'00.6008 0.7021 106.098
12 Brazil Helio Castroneves United States Meyer Shank Racing 25 1'00.7491 0.8504 105.839
13 France Romain Grosjean United States Andretti Autosport 24 1'00.7800 0.8813 105.785
14 Sweden Felix Rosenqvist United States Arrow McLaren SP 25 1'00.7906 0.8919 105.766
15 Denmark Christian Lundgaard United States Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing 21 1'00.8171 0.9184 105.720
16 Japan Takuma Sato United States Dale Coyne Racing 22 1'00.9340 1.0353 105.517
17 Canada Devlin DeFrancesco United States Andretti Autosport 18 1'01.0272 1.1285 105.356
18 United States David Malukas United States Dale Coyne Racing 19 1'01.0360 1.1373 105.341
19 New Zealand Scott McLaughlin United States Team Penske 25 1'01.0976 1.1989 105.235
20 United States Conor Daly United States Ed Carpenter Racing 20 1'01.1253 1.2266 105.187
21 Mexico Patricio O'Ward United States Arrow McLaren SP 24 1'01.2458 1.3471 104.980
22 United States Jimmie Johnson United States Chip Ganassi Racing 24 1'01.4054 1.5067 104.707
23 Australia Will Power United States Team Penske 24 1'01.4993 1.6006 104.548
24 United States Kyle Kirkwood United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 21 1'01.5070 1.6083 104.534
25 Canada Dalton Kellett United States A.J. Foyt Enterprises 19 1'01.9678 2.0691 103.757

 

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