July 18, 2023
The streets of Toronto were filled with the sound of race cars.
The NTT IndyCar Series returned to The Six for the 10th round of the championship.
With Alex Palou firmly clear at the top of the table going into the event and mother nature looking to pay the city a visit, the weekend ahead was looking to be an interesting one.
Before getting into it, however, there was already a shake up in the field.
Simon Pagenaud was announced to be missing his second week in a row after he was not cleared by the IndyCar medical team.
The Frenchman was injured in a violent crash during practice in Mid-Ohio that forced him to miss that race.
Meyer Shank Racing called upon the services of Tom Blomqvist, driver of their #60 Acura in the WeatherTech Sportcar Championship’s GTP class, to fill in.
Practice
The first practice of the weekend on Friday was an opening salvo fired by Andretti Autosport.
Three of their four drivers featured in the top 5 of the timesheet at the end of the session, with Kyle Kirkwood leading the way ahead of Romain Grosjean in second and Colton Herta in fourth.
Both Team Penske and Arrow McLaren showed pace as well, with both teams landing in the top ten.
The field spread was close, with five tenths of a second separating first from 12th.
Second practice, held on Saturday, showed the arrival of Chip Ganassi Racing with Marcus Ericsson, Palou and Scott Dixon all appearing in the top ten, showing whatever adjustments made were working for those teams.
With the rise of some comes the fall of others as both Felix Rosenqvist and Alexander Rossi showed well down the order in this session, with the former having the worse of it.
The Swede slammed hard into the wall late on and the angle of impact caused one of the suspension arms to puncture the monocoque, requiring the McLaren team to go to a back up chassis for qualifying later that day.
Alex Palou (l) came into Toronto on a 3 race winning streak, with a huge points lead. Romain Grosjean (c) was one of 4 Adnretti cars in the top 5 during opening practice. Last year's winner, Scott Dixon (r) came into Toronto looking for his first win of the season. (Photos-Ray Macaloney/Canadian Auto Racers for RaceCanada.ca) |
Qualifying
The setting of the grid for Sunday’s race was anything but simple.
Round one started off uneventful until Mother Nature decided to intervene and bring rain towards the end of the session, catching some drivers out, one of them being Palou.
Kirkwood, Rinus VeeKay, Christian Lundgaard, Will Power, Dixon and Scott McLaughlin all advanced into the Fast 12 from this group.
Round two saw drivers have to tackle difficult and bumpy Toronto roads in the rain, with the conditions proving too much for the likes of Rossi and Herta to move on.
Grosjean, Ericsson, Josef Newgarden, Rosenqvist, O’Ward and Marcus Armstrong all advance.
The Fast 12 was probably the tamest of the sessions of qualifying, although there were some surprising eliminations.
The shock eliminations of Kirkwood and Grosjean would see none of the strong Andretti cars battling for pole position in the final round, despite showing great pace earlier in the weekend.
A highlight of this session was a bold call from McLaren to pit O’Ward for a new set of wet tires with a 1:20 left to go, but the gamble would pay dividends as he managed to top the time sheet and advance to the Firestone Fast Six.
Rosenqvist, McLaughlin, Ericsson, Power and a surprisingly quick Lundgaard would all join him.
The Fast Six saw the green walled alternate tires return with the track rapidly drying and the wets starting to overheat.
Even with the dry line forming, conditions were still treacherous, but one driver managed to overcome them the best.
For the second time this season, Lundgaard would put himself on pole, a full three tenths clear of McLaughlin in second.
O’Ward lines up ahead of Ericsson on row two and Rosenqvist with Power on row three.
Warm Up
The Sunday morning warm up session was an interesting affair, with several drivers getting rather aggressive and making moves on track, with one being Rosenqvist, who seemed to practicing his overtakes into turn 3 and 4.
In the end, the congestion of the session saw McLaren end their running early with no one feeling like they could get any clean running in.
Dixon topped the session, followed by Kirkwood, Newgarden, Herta and Palou.
Scott McLaughlin (l) lead the Penske charge in qualifying in 2nd, with Will Power (c) second quickest of the Penske's in 6th. Canada's Devlin DeFrancesco (r) was 8th quickest in morning warm up, but was let down by his car during the race, completing only 10 laps. (Photos-Ray Macaloney/Canadian Auto Racers for RaceCanada.ca) |
Race
When race time rolled around, any threat of rain had passed and anticipation of the start was building and the storylines were ready to unfold.
The championship leader was starting in 15th, his nearest challenger was ninth on the grid and a young pole sitter was looking for his first career win.
The green flag fell and then Turn 1 decided to make its regularly scheduled appearance in the incident category.
A multi-car pileup on the exit of the corner lead to the end of the day for Blomqvist, Benjamin Pedersen, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Jack Harvey.
After going back green, the likes of Herta and Palou were making moves up the field, with both getting into the top ten by the time the first cycle of pit stops started for the alternate tire runners around lap 17.
Up front, leader Lundgaard, who was one of said runners, was seemingly untouchable in stint one, creating a four second gap back to McLaughlin before pitting onto the primary tires.
After the first set of stops cycled through and the strategies started playing out, it was clear that the Dane was on a mission, moving through the field with patience and precision.
By the time the primary runners, including now leader McLaughlin, started coming in around lap 35, it was clear that his pace in traffic paid dividends, with Lundgaard cycling out to a now six second advantage.
That lead would disappear on lap 42 when Grosjean hit the wall on the exit of turn 10, ending his day and putting another mark on his miserable 2023 campaign.
This caution saw several drivers pit in hopes this wrench thrown in the strategy would go their way, with some of them including Palou and Herta.
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Unfortunately, this decision would not play out as they would have hoped as right off the restart, Kirkwood would get into the back of Helio Castroneves, causing a second yellow, and ending the Brazilian’s day.
This second caution saw another flurry of stops, this time headed by the likes of Lundgaard, O’Ward, Ericsson and Power.
When the restart came with 30 laps to go, it became of race of resource management, seeing who could make to the end on fuel, how much tires would drivers have left, and what amount of push-to-pass was used or saved.
There was also another wrinkle to be added for one in particular.
In an attempt to avoid the spinning Castroneves earlier, Palou made contact with the outside wall, damaging his front wing.
This didn’t seem to slow him down however as by lap 61, the Spaniard was up to second, with the damage seemingly getting worse and worse.
But that would be as high as he would go.
Lundgaard passed Palou and regained the lead on lap 62 after Dixon pitted and checked out en route to his first career win in the NTT IndyCar Series and his first win since Mugello in 2020 racing for ART Grand Prix in Formula 2.
He led 54 of the 85 laps, bringing it home with a dominant 10 second lead.
Herta rounded out the podium, sealing a great recovery drive from a 14th place starting position.
This result sees Palou further extend his championship lead as Dixon came home in fourth with Newgarden rounding out the top five.
The series shifts from the streets to the ovals as Iowa Speedway hosts its IndyCar double header from July 21-23.