TORONTO — A dramatically lesser amount of grip level on an already treacherous 11-turn, 1.786-mile street circuit was the one common theme that IndyCar Series drivers learned in Friday’s practice session.
The 75-minute practice session for Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto was paced by Kyle Kirkwood of Andretti Global. His best lap was 1:01.2054 for a speed of 105.050 mph in the No. 27 Honda. Scott McLaughlin of Team Penske was second at 1:01.3411 (104.817 mph) in the No. 2 Chevrolet.
Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing was third in the No. 10 DHL Honda at 1:01.5987 followed by Marcus Armstrong’s Honda (104.208 mph) in the No. 66 and Team Penske’s Will Power was fifth at 103.948 mph in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet.
“Certainly, a tough one because that’s probably the lowest amount of grip I’ve driven in INDYCAR in a very long time,” Kirkwood said. “That’s just due to the fact that we don’t have a bunch of support series here. We don’t have Indy lights that are usually running on Firestone, helping build up the grip. We were sweeping in a sense for the rest of the session and for the rest of the weekend.
“But overall, pretty solid. I think everybody saw that alternate tires looked like they grained really, really bad. That’s why you saw a lot of people going faster on greens. Interesting how that shakes out for the rest of the weekend.”
The weather at the start of the session was a comfortable 70 degrees ambient with sunny skies and winds from the South at 7 miles per hour. The track temperature was 119 degrees, according to Firestone engineers.
The first 45 minutes of the session was open to all cars.
Colton Herta enters this race with a top qualifying average start on a street course of 1.7.
Christian Rasmussen continued to light it up for ECR, turning some fast laps and making some “Drifting” moves in the turns. Pato O’Ward was also pushing his No. 5 Chevrolet for speed and went off into the runoff area when he lost control in a corner.
With 8 minutes left in the session, Team Penske’s Will Power was the fastest at 1:01.905 in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet. Colton Herta was second at 1;02.021 in the No. 26 Gainbridge Honda and Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden was third in the No. 2 Chevrolet.
McLaughlin, Santino Ferrucci and Pato O’Ward all went off course in the Turn 8 runoff area, an interesting trio that all avoided contact.
Two laps later, Herta went off course in the same area.
When the session ended, Power’s time was the fastest followed by Herta, Newgarden, O’Ward’s 1:02.256 and Kyle Kirkwood’s 1:02.309 in the No. 27.
The two-group sessions, 10-minutes each, followed.
Group 1 and rookie drivers were first led by Scott Dixon, Power and Ferrucci.
Power remained the fastest at 1:01.853. Lundgaard as the second fastest at 1:01.9623. But his speed from the all-skate session continued to place him high in overall speeds.
“The soft tires were there on the second lap, but dropped off from there, so it definitely looks like a 3-stop race if that is the case,” Power said after the 10-minute session. “The Black tires just felt so much better. I might use that in qualifying because it feels so much better.”
The slowest in that group was Herta, who was not happy with his car at the end of the 10-minute session.
“It’s a different year, it feels like it up here,” Herta said. “I don’t know why we are so poor on the alternates. I feel good on the Blacks but when I put on the Greens, the car feels so much different.”
There were no incidents in that session.
Group 2 followed with Kirkwood leading the session at 1:01.2054 in the No. 27 Honda. Scott McLaughlin was second in the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet followed by Alex Palou’s No. 10 Honda at 1:04.379.
Palou enters the race weekend with a 129-point lead over O’Ward in the championship with five races remaining.
The drivers believed the harder Firestone Black tires will be the way to go in the race, making it a three-stop race instead of gambling with a two-stop racing because the softer Green tires degrade quickly.
“I think the primary compound with Firestone is better and the alternate tire is degrading like it is supposed to be,” Ferrucci said. “I think that is the standard that it should be.
“I’m excited. I love this place. I love Toronto. I love the fans here. I’m happy our first session was so successful.”
Felix Rosenqvist believes the grip level will continue to change over the weekend with another round of practice scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET on Saturday with qualifications set for later in the afternoon.
“The softs have a lot more grip,” Rosenqvist said. “This track always grips up. I worked pretty hard. It has a lot of drivability.”
Power said the addition of a bump that has formed on the race course make a fast lap around the track even more physically demanding for a driver.
“It’s a very difficult track,” Power said. “Like Kyle said, it was surprisingly low grip. Really hard to really change anything on the car. Yeah, the greens, you literally had that one prep lap and one lap to go. Yeah, it will be interesting.
“There is a massive new bump at the end of the straight into three. It actually hurts. Right in the braking zone.
“Boom.”
