Four-time champion and current points leader Scott Dixon led both practice sessions in Toronto on Friday. Dixon had a fast lap of 59.0751 seconds around the bumpy street circuit, as 12 other drivers also put in a lap under one minute. Dixon won the double-header event in 2013, but he hasn’t finished inside the Top 5 in the last four races at Toronto.
“The PNC Bank car rolled off really fast off the truck and I expect the competition to continue to be really tough,” said Dixon. “We put a good lap together on the red Firestone alternate tires today, but I expect a lot more drivers to do that tomorrow for qualifying, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens here in Toronto for the pole.
Friday Combined Practice Results
Takuma Sato was 2nd fastest overall on Friday, continuing a nice run for the Japanese driver over the past month. Marco Andretti was 3rd quick for Andretti Autosport, and Graham Rahal gave RLL Racing two cars in the top four on Friday. Alexander Rossi rounded out the top five as a total of 877 laps were turned in by the 23 drivers.
Fresh off of his first IndyCar career podium finish last weekend at Iowa, Spencer Pigot put his Ed Carpenter Racing machine in 6th on the speed chart, leading the way for Chevrolet. Defending series champion Josef Newgarden was 7th, with Ryan Hunter-Reay, Sebastien Bourdais, and last week’s winner James Hinchcliffe rounding out the top ten.
While there weren’t any serious incidents on Friday, it was a fairly rough day for Hunter-Reay, who suffered tire issues in both sessions. Toronto hasn’t been kind to the American lately. Ryan has finished 12th or worse in six of his last seven starts here, and has only led laps in 1 race in his 14 starts.
There are three Canadian drivers in the field this year, for the first time since 2011. Hinchcliffe has finished on the podium in each of the last two races at his home track, but he has never led a lap in his eight starts. Both Robert Wickens and Zachary Claman De Melo are Rookies, but they have the pace and the talent to make a memorable finish on Sunday. Paul Tracy is the only Canadian driver that has ever won this race.
Honda seemed to have the upper hand today, but there may be a different story tomorrow in qualifying. None of the three Penske cars were the fastest Chevrolet on Friday, as they finished 7th, 11th, and 16th respectively on the chart.
There will be one final 45-minute practice session tomorrow at 9:50 AM, followed by qualifying for the Honda Indy Toronto, which begins at 2 PM. Qualifications, just like the practice sessions, will be shown live on IndyCar’s YouTube channel. NBC Sports Network will televise qualifying (tape delay) at 5 PM on Saturday.
Photos courtesy of IndyCar
Driver Quotes
Josef Newgarden: “It was a long day, for sure. I think we made really good progress. The No. 1 Hitachi Chevy is going forward, which is a good thing; we’re finding some speed from Session 1 to Session 2. We just need to make a similar jump tomorrow. I think if we can do the same thing, we should be sitting pretty good for qualifying. It’s a tough track. It’s very fast, much quicker than it was last year at this time in the weekend. We just have to stay on top of it and keep moving forward, but I’m proud of our effort and I think we have a good chance to capitalize here this weekend.”
Matheus Leist: “I think we went through a lot of stuff and managed to test a lot of things, so I think it was a positive day. Practice 1 was pretty good. I finished P9. Second practice, unfortunately, my (fast) lap was under red flag or we would have been 15th, but anyway, I still have some work to do. I think if we find a couple tenths, we’re going to be in the game. It’s such a cool place to drive. I’m looking forward to qualifying and the race.”
James Hinchcliffe: “Today was OK. Obviously, there’s a lot to learn coming to a street circuit with a new car. They’ve done some paving work to the track, which is another curveball to throw us, but the Arrow Electronics team did a solid job. We didn’t get the best run on reds (Firestone alternate tires), and we had a problem with my seatbelt on my fast lap. We’ll take a look at the data we got today and talk it over with Robbie (Robert Wickens) and the No. 6 guys and make sure we can put on a good performance tomorrow for the hometown crowd.”
Robert Wickens: “It feels good to be here in Toronto – the fans have been great. Earlier today, we had the autograph session and there were so many people from Guelph; it’s been amazing to have all the support. Practice didn’t go super well for us. The Lucas Oil crew and I definitely have some work to do overnight.”
Scott Dixon: “A big shout out to the people here who look after the track. They’ve worked really hard and Turn 1 alone is going to create a lot of great racing. There are a lot of great updates. The PNC Bank car rolled off really fast off the truck and I expect the competition to continue to be really tough. We put a good lap together on the red Firestone (alternate) tires today, but I expect a lot more drivers to do that tomorrow for qualifying, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens here in Toronto for the pole.”
Ed Jones: “I’m happy with the way we unloaded with the NTT DATA car. We have speed and I’m excited about this weekend, especially after how we performed on the last street races in Detroit. The track is a lot smoother with the repaving, which is nice. I think the biggest thing we need to work on is getting the car to handle over the bumps out there.”
Will Power: “We didn’t get a very good run on reds (Firestone alternate tires). Unfortunately, I scraped the wall and bent a tow link, so had to change that, and then kind of ran out of time. But we’re in a good window apart from (Scott) Dixon. He’s just got the whole field covered by a mile, but I think the No. 12 Verizon Chevy is right there in that front group.”
Tony Kanaan: “It was a good day for us. It didn’t help that I got a 10-minute penalty at the end because the track always gets better and we had to put our (Firestone alternate) tires on a little early, but I’m happy with the car. Obviously, I would like to be a little bit further up on the grid, but we haven’t had such a smooth day in a while as far as the first day goes. If we make the right changes for tomorrow, I think we’ll be pretty good.”
Graham Rahal: “P2 and 4 in both sessions. Swapped positions, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. You know, I think we put a good product on the track right off the trailer and (I’m) proud of everybody for working hard and making it happen with the No. 15 Rousseau Honda. So, you know, tonight, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Let’s go out and try to find a little bit more. I mean, I’m fourth and I’m less than two-hundredths off Takuma (Sato) in seconds, so it’s going to just be a typical INDYCAR qualifying session.”
Sebastien Bourdais: “I think the Mouser Electronics/Molex car is pretty decent, we just can’t get it to brake properly and that unfortunately is killing us. I can’t get a clue what it’s going to do, when it’s going to do it and why it’s happening, so that is both frustrating and disappointing. We’ll just sit down this afternoon and tonight, go over all the data and see if we can find a reason for the problem.”
Zachary Claman De Melo: “It’s great to be here at the Honda Indy Toronto and to be representing Paysafe in front of all their guests that will be here over the weekend. Unfortunately, this track isn’t easy and we struggled today in practice. We’ll keep working at it for tomorrow and hopefully we can find more speed for qualifying.”
Jordan King: “I am enjoying my time in Toronto. The circuit is quite tricky and it takes some time to learn all of the little characteristics. I feel much more comfortable in the car now than I did during this morning’s session and I feel we are going in a good direction. I do like the street circuits and the challenges they present, but it’s still difficult when the sessions are only 45 minutes. I’m looking forward to sitting down with the engineers to see where we can continue to improve tomorrow.”
Spencer Pigot: “We finished the day strong, which is always nice. We found a few things with the car that I really liked during this afternoon’s practice. Mainly front grip, I am always asking for more. I thought our pace on reds (Firestone alternate tires) was really good as well, which was also encouraging. We were able to close the gap to a lot of the other guys. Overall, it was a good first day and the Preferred Freezer Services car is handling really well. Hopefully, we can keep it like that tomorrow in qualifying.”
Simon Pagenaud: “I’ll say the No. 22 DXC Technology Chevy was pretty good. I think we made quite a bit of improvement on the street course setup. It’s super tight here and it’s a blast to drive around the streets of Toronto. We need to make some improvements to try to be a little closer to (Scott) Dixon. He seems really strong, but I think we’re right in the mix. It’s just super competitive right now. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.” (About keys to a successful qualifying session): “Fuel balance of the car, trying to find the little bits and pieces will be really important for qualifying. The little details come down to that, to extract five-hundredths of seconds in each corner. Then at the end of the lap it adds up so just working on details tonight.”
Charlie Kimball: “I’m pretty happy with this afternoon’s practice session. We definitely made progress from this morning’s session. We have a few balance challenges left to address for tomorrow, but I feel pretty confident that we can learn on the No. 23 car side of things from looking at Max’s (Chilton) data and watching some on-track videos. We didn’t maximize the alternate tire run very well, and even toward the end of that last session, the track was continuing to grip up. I think both the No. 23 and No. 59 cars will take a step forward tomorrow.”
Zach Veach: “I feel a little behind the ball learning right now. This is definitely the toughest track I’ve come to in an Indy car, just trying to figure out the track and the balance of the car. We have a lot of work to do tonight – luckily, I have three really good teammates to lean on. As this year has kind of been, we get ahead in some places, then we come to someplace new and it’s like starting all over again. We just need to figure out what we need to do to go faster tomorrow and then make it happen.”
Alexander Rossi: “It was generally a pretty good day for the NAPA team. There are a lot of cars pretty much on the same lap time and then one car that is a step ahead of all of us. We’ve got to put our heads together and figure out what it is, but generally, I think the performance has been good. We just need to make a good couple of changes overnight, and hopefully, close the gap.”
Ryan Hunter-Reay: “We had quite an interesting second practice today – we went out on (Firestone alternate tires) reds and then the red flag came out, so we never really got a new good run on new reds. All that considered, going P8 on our third outing on the red tires is not bad. We’ll put our heads together as a team – it looks like the cars are quick. Hopefully we’ll go a lot faster tomorrow.”
Takuma Sato: “I think it was a very positive day. The car works pretty well really out of the box. The philosophy took over from last year’s generic RLL setup, and obviously, we built on it for the 2018 kit based on the reduction of aero. I feel positive. There was grip right away. The Firestone tire is very similar to last year. The compound might be a bit different, but it felt the same for me. I had good grip and it seems like the working range is a bit wider. The track change that Toronto has made is a significant difference. The main straight is a lot less bumpy and very comfortable for the drivers. It’s all safer because there is less bottoming and less locking. It’s an impressive job that they’ve done. The entire lap, I was really happy from Practice 1 to Practice 2. In Practice 2, it was much more to my liking and the lap times are very close. But it’s nice to be ahead.”
Rene Binder: “The weekend has started off better for us than in Detroit. I was on pace with the field early. In the first session, I learned the track and throughout both sessions; I became pretty comfortable. In the second session, we were able to run on the Firestone red (alternate) tires and get a good read. We also did some setup changes and tried some new things. The car is handling really well and I am confident we have found a good race setup. Now, we will prepare for qualifying and look to get everything we can out of that session.”
Max Chilton: “It was a challenging day here in Toronto, but I feel confident at this track. I love this circuit and I’ve been quick here before, but we’re just trying to work out the setup as a new team. We went slightly different ways in terms of setup on both cars in that last session, so we’ll come together tonight to see what worked and what didn’t to make the cars better for practice and qualifying tomorrow. I enjoy street circuits, so hopefully we can have a good weekend with good results for the No. 59 Gallagher Chevrolet.”
Conor Daly: “I’m super happy with today. We have to look and see what the other Chevys are doing out there, and compared to them, we’re not bad for only having one day in the car. We got a great run on reds (Firestone alternate tires), but had a little traffic on our run, which is a shame. We’re making the steps we want to make and we’re working through our setup changes, which is great because that’s the goal of the weekend. It’s always nice to work with the Team Chevy guys again, they’re awesome. Obviously, I’m a passionate American man, so to have a Chevy powerplant behind us is always nice.”
Marco Andretti: “It was a good first day. We still need to find that four-and-a-half tenths to (Scott) Dixon, he’s got that over all of us right now. We need to be careful, though, that chasing that doesn’t detune us elsewhere. Right now, the Oberto Circle K car is, I think, a P2 car – we just need to find that gap to P1.”
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