After a wild practice session in the morning, the chaos continued in qualifying as several drivers were frustrated, and many more suffered incidents on the 11-turn street course. It was Herta that set a blistering final lap of 59.2698 seconds to take the top spot, earning his ninth career pole on Saturday.
“That was an intense session,” Herta said. “We hadn’t really found that time until right to the end. I’m happy. We put it all together. The car is amazing, the team is amazing. Thank you Honda! We rolled off the trucks really good. Alex was fastest yesterday. Another Andretti car up there today with us. We feel really confident. Made some good adjustments overnight and they seem to be working.”
“It couldn’t have been much better of a day,” Herta continued. “We had a great race car this morning and did a little bit to it to adjust it and ended up being very fast this afternoon. On the used reds, the car just kind of came alive, which is intriguing and interesting for tomorrow’s race. We will have to go out and see, but I’m really happy with the team’s performance today.”
Joining Herta on the front row tomorrow is Scott Dixon, who narrowly missed out on his first non-Indy 500 pole since 2016. The six-time series champion has three wins and a pair of runner-up finishes here, and has led the most (200) laps. Dixon was pleased with the result, despite making a slight mistake. “The first lap I messed up and I think it altered the run,” he said. “We can win from here, though. Congratulations to Colton.”
Row 2 features two supremely talented drivers in Josef Newgarden and Alexander Rossi. It was a great result for the Penske driver, considering that he had mechanical issues earlier in the day, which forced him to miss the entire practice session. The team made an engine change in his No. 2 Chevrolet before qualifying began.
Rossi has two podium finishes in the last three Toronto races but has never led a lap at this track in his four career starts. He will look to change that tomorrow, as he tries to snap his three-year winless streak. The last time IndyCar raced here at Toronto, Rossi was coming off of his most recent race win at Road America.
“We led the field in segment two,” Rossi said. “It’s unfortunate because the guys that beat us only had one lap from their group in round one on their used reds so it’s an uphill battle. The car felt great, it’s just one of those things where it’s so tight and those extra…
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