IndyCar Toronto: Herta tops FP2 as Rosenqvist crashes

Herta topped the 45-minute session around the 11-turn, 1.786-mile Exhibition Place street course with a best lap of 1m00.5657s.

With rain threatening, the track was busy right from the start of the session as teams tried to get runs in before the showers took hold.

Herta set the early pace at 1m03.5437s before Scott Dixon (Chip Ganassi Racing) and then Romain Grosjean (Andretti) usurped him from the top of the speed chart. Grosjean set 1m02.1538s, which was soundly beaten by team-mate Kyle Kirkwood’s 1m00.8111s.

Local hero Devlin DeFrancesco set an impressive P2 for Andretti, 0.6279s off Kirkwood, with David Malukas (Dale Coyne Racing) leaping up to third.

Despite intensifying rain drops, Arrow McLaren’s Felix Rosenqvist rose to second, 0.2799s slower than Kirkwood, while Graham Rahal jumped to fourth for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

After 15 minutes, Dixon claimed second place with 1m00.8652s, just 0.05s away from Kirkwood’s best time, with Grosjean and Herta swapping third spot.

Kyle Kirkwood, Andretti Autosport Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

As the rain abated, Herta took P1 briefly on his next lap of 1m00.6999s but Kirkwood reclaimed it almost immediately with 1m00.5972s, before it swung back again to Herta on 1m00.5657s.

Ganassi duo Marcus Ericsson and Alex Palou – who had a puncture on his alternate-tyre run on Friday ­– took third and fourth respectively with 15 minutes to go.

Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren) was fifth when team-mate Rosenqvist caused the first red flag of the weekend when he put his McLaren into the wall on the exit of Turn 5 with seven minutes to go.

That led to a frenzied final few minutes with 26 cars on track but everyone appeared too preoccupied with finding a gap than improving their laptimes.

Herta went off at Turn 1 and rejoined without incident, virtually matching his quickest lap on his final tour despite almost rear-ending newbie Tom Blomqvist (Meyer Shank Racing). Blomqvist was slowest of the runners, but improved to within 2.1s of the pace.

Callum Ilott (Juncos Hollinger Racing) visited the Turn 8 escape road, but quickly recovered. O’Ward and Rosenqvist (before his shunt) both did likewise at Turn 3 as did the third McLaren driver, Alexander Rossi, at Turn 1.

FP2 result:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	1'00.5657
2	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	1'00.5972	0.0315
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.6350	0.0693
4	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.6802	0.1145
5	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	1'00.7054	0.1397
6	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'00.7366	0.1709
7	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	1'00.8316	0.2659
8	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'00.8652	0.2995
9	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	1'00.9153	0.3496
10	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	1'00.9255	0.3598
11	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	1'01.0220	0.4563
12	Will Power	Team Penske	1'01.0615	0.4958
13	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'01.0626	0.4969
14	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	1'01.0901	0.5244
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	1'01.0910	0.5253
16	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	1'01.1415	0.5758
17	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'01.1655	0.5998
18	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'01.2148	0.6491
19	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	1'01.3510	0.7853
20	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	1'01.4285	0.8628
21	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	1'01.4390	0.8733
22	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	1'01.4481	0.8824
23	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	1'01.4649	0.8992
24	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Ed Carpenter Racing	1'01.5281	0.9624
25	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	1'01.5938	1.0281
26	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	1'02.3547	1.7890
27	Tom Blomqvist	Meyer Shank Racing	1'02.6984	2.1327
View full results