Practice report

IndyCar Toronto: Dixon fastest from Kirkwood in warm-up

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon set the fastest time in warm-up for the IndyCar Series race around the bumpy streets of Toronto in Canada on Sunday morning.

Dixon topped the 30-minute session around the 11-turn, 1.786-mile Exhibition Place street course with a best lap of 1m01.3208s.

The session started in damp conditions after a rainy and foggy start to the day, but the track quickly dried out with all cars on slick tyres. After a dry-wet-dry qualifying, many drivers had an abundance of tyres to use to get a final read on degradation over a stint.

Dixon set the early pace with 1m02.7294s after 10 minutes, with polesitter Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing) getting within a tenth. Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and Felix Rosenqvist (Arrow McLaren) then got into an entertaining spat where they ran side-by-side, corner after corner.

Colton Herta, who will start 14^th for Andretti Autosport, produced two laps in the 1m02.7s in succession, just 0.032s off Dixon for P2 at the halfway point, with the majority of times set on the primary tyres.

Lundgaard switched to the softer alternate rubber and took P1 with 1m02.7137s, shortly before David Malukas topped that with 1m02.7002s on the green-sidewalled Firestones.

Callum Ilott, Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Callum Ilott (Juncos Hollinger Racing) then enjoyed a turn at the top with 1m02.5856s, before Alex Palou (Ganassi, the points dominator who will start down in 15^th today) beat him with 1m01.8695s with six minutes to go. Josef Newgarden (Penske) then set 1m01.6161s before Dixon retook P1 with 1m01.3208s – which stuck as the quickest time of the session.

Kyle Kirkwood (Andretti) ended the session in P2, just 0.06s slower, ahead of Newgarden, Herta, Palou and Lundgaard.

Santino Ferrucci (AJ Foyt Racing) had an early off at Turn 3 and continued after gently nosing into the tyrewall, while Andretti’s Devlin DeFrancesco – the sole Canadian in the field – also overshot at that point of the track. He rejoined an ended the session in an encouraging eighth place.

Tom Blomqvist, who makes his IndyCar debut for Meyer Shank Racing this weekend, was 19^th fastest, while Rosenqvist slipped to last.

The race starts at 2:00pm local time, with only a slight chance of rain in the forecast.

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Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	27	1'01.3208			104.852
2	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	22	1'01.3810	0.0602	0.0602	104.749
3	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	26	1'01.6161	0.2953	0.2351	104.349
4	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	25	1'01.8147	0.4939	0.1986	104.014
5	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	21	1'01.8695	0.5487	0.0548	103.922
6	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	26	1'02.1114	0.7906	0.2419	103.517
7	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	25	1'02.2829	0.9621	0.1715	103.232
8	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	24	1'02.3288	1.0080	0.0459	103.156
9	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	26	1'02.4107	1.0899	0.0819	103.021
10	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	24	1'02.4449	1.1241	0.0342	102.964
11	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	25	1'02.5711	1.2503	0.1262	102.757
12	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	26	1'02.6647	1.3439	0.0936	102.603
13	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	22	1'02.7002	1.3794	0.0355	102.545
14	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	24	1'02.8236	1.5028	0.1234	102.344
15	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	26	1'02.9486	1.6278	0.1250	102.140
16	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	26	1'02.9719	1.6511	0.0233	102.103
17	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	26	1'03.0694	1.7486	0.0975	101.945
18	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	22	1'03.1050	1.7842	0.0356	101.887
19	Tom Blomqvist	Meyer Shank Racing	22	1'03.1246	1.8038	0.0196	101.856
20	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	25	1'03.2249	1.9041	0.1003	101.694
21	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	22	1'03.2946	1.9738	0.0697	101.582
22	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	25	1'03.3168	1.9960	0.0222	101.547
23	Will Power	Team Penske	27	1'03.3545	2.0337	0.0377	101.486
24	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Ed Carpenter Racing	21	1'03.7244	2.4036	0.3699	100.897
25	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	14	1'03.7935	2.4727	0.0691	100.788
26	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	23	1'03.9161	2.5953	0.1226	100.594
27	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	22	1'04.0803	2.7595	0.1642	100.337
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