Toronto, ON – Andretti Global driver Colton Herta should buy his teammate, Kyle Kirkwood, dinner for protecting his lead from the entire field. Herta, who held a one to two-second lead for most of the race, was never challenged by Kirkwood, running in second-place; not even on the final restart, with six laps to go. Herta led 81 of the 85-lap race at Exhibition Place on the 1.786-mile, 11-turn temporary street course.
Scott Dixon finished third and points leader Alex Palou managed a fourth-place finish after starting 18th on the grid (due to a qualifying interference penalty he didn’t feel was deserved).
“We’ve been knocking on the door for a long time,” said a relieved Herta, earning his eighth career INDYCAR win in six seasons. “Forty-one starts without a win is a long time. I drive for an owner (Michael Andretti – who has won Toronto seven times) who demands perfection. It’s disappointing when you have success in this series and then don’t get it for a long time. I didn’t have any self-doubt or concern about the team. But it’s difficult to be happy about our performance without a win for a long time.
“Any race on concrete is very difficult. You feel like you are running on ice. The car was great on both the primary and alternate tires. This is an awesome weekend.”
The Toronto victory was the first win this season (12th of 17 races) for the Andretti team and it was also the first podium for Kirkwood. The win landed Herta fourth in the standings, with 354 points, and Kirkwood ranks seventh, with 314 points.
“It was definitely a chess game out there and more defensive than anything else,” explained Kirkwood, about protecting the back of Herta. “The last thing I’m going to do is attack Colton and potentially cause an issue just so I can win. I started in dirty air every time (on restarts). There were no team orders. We just happened to pit at the same time. I didn’t want to pressure him. We needed to dominate this race and put ourselves up front. On street courses, you want to salvage a one-two finish rather than take risks. Colton is deserving of the win today. We had solid cars all weekend long and led every session.”
Dixon, now third in the championship battle, with 358 points, started 15th.
“It was frustrating because of yesterday (in Qualifying),” said Dixon. “We had a very good car all weekend and a ton of speed. I waved a lap off because of a car coming out of the pits. That lap would have got us through and we should have been a lot further up the grid. Our plan was to go long with the primary tires initially and save fuel. At the start, I picked off three or four cars. Once we got in clean air, we could run really fast pace. We started overcutting everybody and it worked well. You create a lot of your own good luck. We’ll keep fighting because without our tire issue at Road America and the hybrid problem at Mid-Ohio, we could be leading the championship. This time last year we were 120 points back. We closed it to 60 (actually 53 points to Palou, his teammate, with 270 points possible in the five races left). Until we’re out of it, we’re never going to give up.”
Championship leader Alex Palou (411 points) leaves Toronto with an even bigger gap to second place Will Power (362 points), who started 9th and finished 12th.
“We were waiting for someone to make a mistake,” revealed Palou, who only has one road course left and four ovals where he has yet to win. “The car was great. It’s a shame we had to start from 18th. Our car was amazing, super-fast and easy to drive. I’m looking forward to a couple weeks of rest and to recharge the batteries. The goal is to win as many races as possible race by race. There are a lot of points left.”
After everyone had completed their final pit stop, there was a major incident on the Lap 73 restart, exiting Turn 1, that brought out the Red Flag for almost 20 minutes. Pato O’Ward spun backwards exiting the first turn on the left side. Marcus Ericsson spun to avoid him, but Pietro Fittipaldi and Santino Ferrucci ran over O’Ward’s front wing, launching Ferrucci into the air and landing upside down. Collected on the right side was Nolan Siegel and Toby Sowery. Fortunately, due to the safety of the Dallara chassis, no one was injured.
“I had rear tire locking under braking and spun,” stated O’Ward. “I’m surprised INDYCAR didn’t call a Yellow. It took over five seconds. They were just asking for a massive crash. It’s been a very tough weekend overall.”
While street courses are unpredictable, there were five cautions for a total of 15 laps. What was even more surprising was Will Power’s attempted pass, knocking Scott McLaughlin into the wall entering Turn Five on Lap 77. Power finished 12th after a drive through penalty for avoidable contact of his Penske teammate, costing both valuable points in the title fight.
“It was a low percentage move,” said McLaughlin, who was running fourth at the time, and applauded his teammate the next time by, emphasizing his displeasure. “He came from a long way back. We were both ahead of Palou (in the race) and fighting for the championship. I thought we could get some really good points today. It’s disappointing to make contact with your teammate but we’ll have to fight a lot harder now.”
The top seven drivers were all Honda powered at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto, the 36th open wheel race on the streets of Toronto. With five races left, the title fight is still wide open.
