IndyCar News: Kirkwood tops Practice 1 in Toronto
Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (pictured) set the fastest lap time of 1m01.2054s in Friday’s Practice 1 for the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto.
Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin was second fastest, 0.136s behind Kirkwood.
Runaway points leader and soon-to-be 2025 NTT IndyCar Champion, Alex Palou, was third, 0.39s behind Kirkwood.
Marcus Armstrong was 4th, 0.49s behind Kirkwood.
Team Penske’s Will Power rounded out the top 5, 0.51 seconds behind Kirkwood.
Defending race winner Colton Herta of the U.S. was 10th, 0.82s behind his teammate Kirkwood.
Kyle Kirkwood finished the 2024 race here in second place. The American was asked how the track was today.
“This certainly a tough one because that’s probably the lowest amount of grip I’ve driven in INDYCAR in a very long time. 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.”
“It’s always nice coming back to Toronto. Of course, it helps that today is free and they ask for just a donation for Make a Wish to get people out here, right? Nonetheless, we still have fans in Canada clearly because this weekend is always booming.”
” I looked up at the stands. Man, those stands are full. People go everywhere on a day like today. Excited for the weekend. Quite different than last weekend.” Note: Admission was free on Friday, although fans were encouraged to donate to Make-A-Wish Canada.
Team Penske’s Will Power also commented on the track and tires.
“It’s a very difficult track. 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.”
“Massive new bump at the end of the straight into three. It actually hurts. Right in the braking zone, boom.”
“I think they honestly need to grind it tonight. It will hurt racing. Very apprehensive to go up the inside. They should grind it.”
Apparently the bump is on the entry to Turn 3.
2025 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto Practice 1 Results
|
Pos |
Car |
Driver Name |
Engine |
Time |
Speed |
Behind |
Gap |
Laps |
|
1 |
27 |
Kirkwood, Kyle |
Honda |
1m01.2054s |
105.050 |
–.—- |
–.—- |
20 |
|
2 |
3 |
McLaughlin, Scott |
Chevy |
1m01.3411s |
104.817 |
0.1357 |
0.1357 |
26 |
|
3 |
10 |
Palou, Alex |
Honda |
1m01.5987s |
104.379 |
0.3933 |
0.2576 |
22 |
|
4 |
66 |
Armstrong, Marcus |
Honda |
1m01.6994s |
104.208 |
0.4940 |
0.1007 |
23 |
|
5 |
12 |
Power, Will |
Chevy |
1m01.8538s |
103.948 |
0.5127 |
0.1544 |
26 |
|
6 |
90 |
Ilott, Callum |
Chevy |
1m01.8985s |
103.873 |
0.6931 |
0.0447 |
22 |
|
7 |
5 |
O’Ward, Pato |
Chevy |
1m01.9285s |
103.823 |
0.7231 |
0.0300 |
22 |
|
8 |
4 |
Malukas, David |
Chevy |
1m01.9569s |
103.775 |
0.7515 |
0.0284 |
24 |
|
9 |
7 |
Lundgaard, Christian |
Chevy |
1m01.9623s |
103.766 |
0.7569 |
0.0054 |
20 |
|
10 |
26 |
Herta, Colton |
Honda |
1m02.0219s |
103.667 |
0.8165 |
0.0596 |
19 |
|
11 |
60 |
Rosenqvist, Felix |
Honda |
1m02.0812s |
103.568 |
0.8758 |
0.0593 |
21 |
|
12 |
21 |
Rasmussen, Christian |
Chevy |
1m02.0923s |
103.549 |
0.8869 |
0.0111 |
21 |
|
13 |
9 |
Dixon, Scott |
Honda |
1m02.1057s |
103.527 |
0.9003 |
0.0134 |
23 |
|
14 |
18 |
Veekay, Rinus |
Honda |
1m02.1410s |
103.468 |
0.9356 |
0.0353 |
24 |
|
15 |
2 |
Newgarden, Josef |
Chevy |
1m02.1549s |
103.445 |
0.9495 |
0.0139 |
16 |
|
16 |
15 |
Rahal, Graham |
Honda |
1m02.1730s |
103.415 |
0.9676 |
0.0024 |
24 |
|
17 |
20 |
Rossi, Alexander |
Chevy |
1m02.2232s |
103.331 |
1.0178 |
0.0502 |
25 |
|
18 |
45 |
Foster, Louis (R) |
Honda |
1m02.2629s |
103.265 |
1.0575 |
0.0397 |
29 |
|
19 |
83 |
Shwartzman, Robert (R) |
Chevy |
1m02.2750s |
103.245 |
1.0696 |
0.0121 |
33 |
|
20 |
14 |
Ferrucci, Santino |
Chevy |
1m02.3798s |
103.072 |
1.1744 |
0.1048 |
23 |
|
21 |
28 |
Ericsson, Marcus |
Honda |
1m02.3890s |
103.057 |
1.1836 |
0.0092 |
20 |
|
22 |
6 |
Siegel, Nolan |
Chevy |
1m02.4519s |
102.953 |
1.2465 |
0.0629 |
26 |
|
23 |
8 |
Simpson, Kyffin |
Honda |
1m02.4789s |
102.908 |
1.2735 |
0.0270 |
31 |
|
24 |
51 |
Abel, Jacob (R) |
Honda |
1m02.5477s |
102.795 |
1.3423 |
0.0688 |
27 |
|
25 |
30 |
DeFrancesco, Devlin |
Honda |
1m02.9283s |
102.173 |
1.5330 |
0.2415 |
26 |
|
26 |
77 |
Robb, Sting Ray |
Chevy |
1m03.2422s |
101.666 |
2.0368 |
0.3139 |
20 |
|
27 |
76 |
Daly, Conor |
Chevy |
1m03.7464s |
100.862 |
1.8926 |
0.2175 |
23 |
(R) Rookie
Lucille Dust reporting live from Toronto