TORONTO – Andretti Autosport continued to find the speed on the streets of Toronto with two cars at the top of the list in Saturday morning’s NTT IndyCar Series practice session for the Honda Indy Toronto.
Colton Herta had an impressive lap of 1:00.5657 around the 11-turn, 1.786-mile temporary street course at Toronto’s Exhibition Place in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda. Teammate Kyle Kirkwood, who was the fastest in Friday’s session, was second at 1:00.6972 in the No. 27 AutoNation Honda.
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“It kept getting faster through the session,” Herta said. “My fastest lap was on the second run of the first set of tires. On street courses, the development of the track grip is so rapid. You have to stay on top of it.
“That’s what most of the changes overnight included, trying to strap down the rear a little bit more without creating more understeer. It seems like we did it pretty well.
“We’ll need a little more front grip for red tires, and we’ll look for that, but other than that, it’s good.
“We have competitive cars, but the bad thing is they are your teammates. But we can look at each other’s data and learn from it. We had a lot of good changes from all of the cars. Now, it’s on to qualifying.”
Herta is attempting to win his third-straight pole this season and his second-straight pole at Toronto when qualifications begin at 2:50 p.m. Eastern Time on Peacock.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Marcus Ericsson was third at 1:00.6350 in the No. 8 Huski Ice Spritzer Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing followed by teammate and IndyCar Series points leader Alex Palou’s 1:00.6802 in the No. 10 Journie Rewards Honda.
The top four were Honda drivers. Pato O’Ward’s fifth-fastest time of 1:007.7054 for Arrow McLaren was the fastest Chevrolet.
Palou has a 110-point lead over teammate Scott Dixon entering Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto. Dixon was eighth in Saturday morning’s practice at 1:00.8652 in the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing.
Dixon is a four-time winner of the Honda Indy Toronto.
At the start of the morning session, weather was moving in with rain drops falling on parts of the course, but not the entire layout. That created a sense of urgency for teams to get some fast laps in on dry conditions to determine overnight changes to the track.
Christian Lundgaard brushed the wall with his left rear coming out of turn eight, but no damage to the car.
With 7:07 left in the session, Felix Rosenqvist entered turn five too hot and slammed into the concrete barrier, just past the tire barriers for the first red flag of the weekend.
Prior to that, Rosenqvist was 14th at 1:01.0910 in the No. 6 Chevrolet.
When practice resumed, the search for a clean lap continued, creating momentary traffic jams as drivers laid back trying to create a gap to the car in front.