Andretti Global’s Colton Herta in the No.26 Gainbridge Honda led a team 1-2 in qualifying for Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto after setting a fastest time of 59.5431s while Kyle Kirkwood in the No.27 AutoNation Honda set a time of 59.6735s while Felix Rosenqvist starts the race from third place while Scott McLaughlin in the No.3 Gallagher Team Penske Chevrolet starts the race from fourth place.
Speaking following the action, Herta said:
We just need to (do) the same. “This (car) has been a rocket ship all weekend (and) really has (been) the past few races. Luck hasn’t turned our way for a win yet, and I’m hoping it’s here tomorrow.”
Romain Grosjean starts the race from fifth place just ahead of David Malukas who rounds out the top six. Josef Newgarden starts the race from seventh just ahead of Graham Rahal and Will Power. Rahal commented saying:
We would have liked to have advanced to the next round, but I thought the lap I did was very, very good for what we had. It was very close to advancing to the next round, but I thought the United Rentals No. 15 was solid; we’ve made really good improvements throughout the weekend. And I think we’ve found quite a bit of improvements, so I’m pleased with that. Hopefully we can put it together tomorrow. It takes a long time to get the concrete to where it has any grip and I think we’re just starting to get there. I would have like to have the United Rentals car up just a hair higher, but we’ll take P8. It’s a very respectable starting spot.”
Agustin Canapino starts the race from tenth place just ahead of Marcus Ericsson and Christian Rasmussen. Marcus Armstrong starts 13th just ahead of Pato O’Ward and Scott Dixon who had a disappointing session as the six-time series champion starts the race from 15th place.
Christian Lundgaard starts the race from 16th place and will have a lot of work to do to repeat his win here from a year ago and speaking following the action he said:
Going into qualifying there was some uncertainty of what we really had and where we really were compared to last year. We struggled to get the balance right. We’ve struggled with an imbalanced, very square car that is not easy to drive and we saw in qualifying we weren’t able to extract lap time. Not having tested the hybrid as much as the test teams is a factor. We will continue to work hard to close the learning gap on that with the hybrid.”
Santino Ferrucci starts the race from 17th place in the No.14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet for AJ Foyt Racing and speaking following the action he said:
“Just mistimed it. “It was just an error in our calculations. Just a bit unfortunate. We were out way too long on reds [greens], way too heavy with fuel when the tires were at their optimum and ended up running three laps at the same pace. But you know when you’re out there on reds [greens] and people are coming out on sticker tires and you’re just catching traffic, there’s nothing you can do. So, it’s kind of just terrible for us because now we start buried in the pack and that’s never good here but we’ll make due for tomorrow.
“Obviously, we’ve had great race pace all year long, I don’t think that’s going to change, we’re fighting some balance issues here this weekend. We’ve been on the back foot since FP1 And we were just trying to get some things changed but to be honest that’s how it goes on some street courses, so we’ll get it all tuned up and we’ll be good to go.”
Championship leader Alex Palou starts the race from 18th place just ahead of Nolan Siegel. Kyffin Simpson rounded out the top twenty for Chip Ganassi Racing just ahead of Toby Sowery and Rinus VeeKay while Pietro Fittipaldi starts the race from 23rd place and speaking following the action he said:
Qualifying was tough. We had a SOC (state of charge) hybrid issue that cost us a few tenths which would have put us at least a few positions forward, maybe 10th or ninth in our group. We have to just be resilient and keep pushing through it and have a good race tomorrow.
Linus Lundqvist starts the race from 24th just ahead of Hunter McIrea while Theo Pourchaire starts 26th and speaking after flying from France to Toronto on Friday night he commented saying:
“I was obviously not expecting to be here, so I am dealing with a good amount of jet lag. It was a bit of a stressful situation to get here, but we made it and I think we did okay. The No. 7 Ryde Arrow McLaren Chevrolet was good, and I adapted quickly. We only did nine laps, and I worked to try to learn the track the first time out with the new hybrid system, as well. I think we can be confident for tomorrow because the package looks pretty strong. It is not going to be easy, but I think we can grab some positions and complete every lap. I want to get this car as close to the front as I can for Alex.”
Sting Ray Robb rounds out the grid in 27th and speaking following the action, he said:
“Just speed, we didn’t have any speed. “I don’t really know what it is thing that we’re struggling with — something that we just haven’t figured out yet. We’ve been trying different setups the last two days and this one didn’t work for us. So, we’ll probably unwind that a little bit and hopefully figure out something in the warm up tomorrow because right now we’re missing a lot.”