IndyCar News: Kirkwood tops Practice 1 in Toronto

Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood (pictured) set the fastest lap time 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.

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.”

Will Power Photo courtesy of Penske Entertainment: Chris Owens

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	NO.	NAME	ENGINE	BEHIND	GAP	SPEED	LAPS
1	27	K. Kirkwood	Honda	0.0000s	0.0000s	105.050	20
2	3	S. McLaughlin	Chevy	0.1357s	0.1357s	104.817	26
3	10	A. Palou	Honda	0.3933s	0.2576s	104.379	22
4	66	M. Armstrong	Honda	0.4940s	0.1007s	104.208	23
5	12	W. Power	Chevy	0.5127s	0.1544s	103.948	26
6	90	C. Ilott	Chevy	0.6931s	0.0447s	103.873	22
7	5	P. O’ward	Chevy	0.7231s	0.0300s	103.823	22
8	4	D. Malukas	Chevy	0.7515s	0.0284s	103.775	24
9	7	C. Lundgaard	Chevy	0.7569s	0.0054s	103.766	20
10	26	C. Herta	Honda	0.8165s	0.0596s	103.667	19
11	60	F. Rosenqvist	Honda	0.8758s	0.0593s	103.568	21
12	21	C. Rasmussen	Chevy	0.8869s	0.0111s	103.549	21
13	9	S. Dixon	Honda	0.9003s	0.0134s	103.527	23
14	18	R. Veekay	Honda	0.9356s	0.0353s	103.468	24
15	2	J. Newgarden	Chevy	0.9495s	0.0139s	103.445	16
16	15	G. Rahal	Honda	0.9676s	0.0024s	103.415	24
17	20	A. Rossi	Chevy	1.0178s	0.0502s	103.331	25
18	45	L. Foster	Honda	1.0575s	0.0397s	103.265	29
19	83	R. Shwartzman	Chevy	1.0696s	0.0121s	103.245	33
20	14	S. Ferrucci	Chevy	1.1744s	0.1048s	103.072	23
21	28	M. Ericsson	Honda	1.1836s	0.0092s	103.057	20
22	6	N. Siegel	Chevy	1.2465s	0.0629s	102.953	26
23	8	K. Simpson	Honda	1.2735s	0.0270s	102.908	31
24	51	J. Abel	Honda	1.3423s	0.0688s	102.795	27
25	30	D. DeFrancesco	Honda	1.5330s	0.2415s	102.173	26
26	77	S. Robb	Chevy	2.0368s	0.3139s	101.666	20
27	76	C. Daly	Chevy	1.8926s	0.2175s	100.862	23

Lucille Dust reporting live from Toronto