Toronto IndyCar winners and losers

IndyCar made its return to racing outside of the US for the first time since 2019 when Toronto’s COVID-enforced absence from the calendar ended at the weekend.

The Canadian venue has never had a caution-free race, so there’s always drama and the bumpy, changeable surface always causes a mixed-bag of results and this weekend was no different.

Whether it was ripped balaclavas, examining dampers from 2008 or rebounding from rival teams claiming to have snatched your top driver for next season, there was no shortage of storylines in Canada.

WINNERS

Rahal Letterman Lanigan

It’s not often you dig out a set of dampers from 2008 to see if you’re on track in 2022, but that’s what Rahal Letterman Lanigan did in a recent test at Sebring, among other things, to try to work on its damping.

It’d been a horrendous year in terms of results for RLL, coming into Toronto, with no top five finishes among its three cars.

Armed with some back to basics damping examinations it found an immediate gain. Graham Rahal reckons the team is still lacking but this weekend was an improvement.

He should have been in the top six in qualifying but didn’t get a clean lap. In the race he ran a long first stint, was rapid on used tyres and made up four places in his final stop before executing a brilliant Turn 1 dive on Scott McLaughlin for fourth.

You get the feeling this team has stopped banging its head against the wall and criticising itself for its first half of the season and this weekend in Toronto was its reward with ace rookie Christian Lundgaard backing Rahal up with eighth place.

Colton Herta

Finally, nothing went wrong while fighting for a podium! Whether it’s mistakes by Herta himself, the Andretti team or unreliability, Herta’s fallen victim to it all this year.

However, he cut a different figure battling Scott Dixon for the Toronto win. No risky moves, no over pushing or repeat threats from the wall that he was coming close. He just tried really hard, but accepted when the battle was lost and took the points.

He even had to fight his hair in his eyes, which almost cost him in his fight with Felix Rosenqvist, when his balaclava ripped. From codewords to ripped balaclavas, Herta’s really seen everything this weekend.

It’s exactly what he needed in the championship as others faltered and he moved up. Maybe he’s not in contention for the title at 97 points off but closing the 50 points to the top five seems more doable, especially when he scored 131 points in the last three races alone last year.

A perfect week considering his McLaren Formula 1 test too, and proof he can settle for second when the occasion requires it.

Dixon & Ganassi

“We needed this,” said Dixon to a crew member as he left victory lane.

Obviously the points in the championship were key but this win means more mentally to Dixon and his #9 team than just getting to the chequered flag first.

Without attempting to over-analyse body language, Dixon’s pitlane speeding mistake at the Indianapolis 500 still appears to haunt him as he discussed that and other issues regularly this season. Winning helps ease the pain of that and some set-up gamble errors and disruption caused by personnel moving around in the team.

People have been crying disaster over Dixon’s season, but if only one finish outside of the top 10 in 10 races is a bad season, give me that any day. Dixon’s being judged by impossibly high standards.

He criticised his team-mate Alex Palou’s handling of his future after Ganassi and McLaren both announced they’d signed him for 2023, but Dixon also credited a team effort for the end result. Marcus Ericsson struggled in qualifying with his driving but turned ninth into fifth and extended his points lead while a huge undercut from Palou leaped him forward from 22nd into contention, and he made some great overtakes to take sixth, even if he couldn’t pass Ericsson.

All in all Ganassi faced about as difficult a situation as it could off-track heading into a race weekend, but Dixon, Ericsson and Palou rebounded magnificently.

Even Jimmie Johnson was on for a decent result and was only just over a second off the fastest race lap before he was hit by Kyle Kirkwood.

IndyCar and Canada

IndyCar is constantly asked by fans when it will race internationally again. Perhaps Toronto will remind it how much it could benefit from doing so on a larger scale once more

A stellar crowd rewarded the series’ return and reminded some why the country used to have multiple races per season.

“I think there’s a lot of potential here,” said race winner Dixon.

“There’s a lot of fans for our sport. They’re very knowledgeable. They know all the drivers. They’re wearing all the team kit. It’s cool to see.

“I think we should race here more.”

Even with a nightmare pitlane and a track breaking up in places, everyone loves Toronto.

LOSERS

Pato O’Ward

This might be the first weekend O’Ward has been comprehensively outperformed by a team-mate in IndyCar.

He said the car was “slow” after qualifying 15th and even as drivers came from behind him to finish in the top six in the race he looked at sea with his machine.

It didn’t help that he was caught up in multiple incidents where he had to take avoiding action or get off line into the marbles just to avoid the chaos.

Eleventh isn’t the worst finish, but might prove costly as he moves 75 points off the lead after two mechanical DNFs.

We haven’t included his team-mate Rosenqvist in the list as we’ve written a separate feature on him, but he certainly was the Arrow McLaren SP star of the weekend. O’Ward is desperate to share a podium with his team-mate, but the duo will have to wait at least another race.

CALLUM ILOTT

Another strong qualifying, another disappointing finish for Callum Ilott, even though there were positives to take.

Juncos Hollinger has really struggled as a one car team on street courses – somewhere the team it has a technical tie-in with, Carlin, also struggled previously – but now really seems to have found some pace if this weekend is anything to go by with Ilott tying his best IndyCar qualifying in seventh.

In the race he lost some spots but was around the top 10 until he broke his front wing after his first pitstop and spent the rest of the race trying to recover.

In that sense, a hard fought 14th isn’t bad at all for this team and driver who has been given licence to be aggressive and make mistakes in his learning curve.

But ultimately it would be a shame to qualify this well in multiple places and not deliver on that promise.

TAKUMA SATO

In recent weeks Takuma Sato has been overshadowed by his young Dale Coyne Racing team-mate David Malukas. In Toronto Sato crashed in the last practice before qualifying, started 19th and was pushed into the wall on lap one as three-wide into Turn 2 doesn’t work.

A quick exit.@TakumaSatoRacer's day ends early after running out of room on lap 2 of the @HondaIndy.

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He’s now 19th in the points, behind Malukas, and with only two top 10s for the year.

Malukas on the other hand is really impressing. Eleventh, 16th, ninth and 12th over his last four races has been a really nice run and a fifth-place qualifying here probably shows how far he’s outperforming his machinery as he tends to fall back under pressure in the races. The team’s pit crew could certainly help push the squad forward.

Still, fastest lap in the race proves what was possible.

ALEXANDER ROSSI

After a nightmare Mid-Ohio race where he hit team-mate Romain Grosjean three times, Rossi needed a quiet points banker in Toronto and almost had it, fighting for a top five before his clash with Rosenqvist.

"He just shoved me off."@FRosenqvist and @AlexanderRossi collide while battling for P4.

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No driver accepted blame for the incident. It looked more Rosenqvist’s fault as the contact was initiated by his oversteer and later in the race we saw Ericsson and Palou pass through there cleanly.

Perhaps Rossi could have conceded earlier but he was within his rights to defend. Maybe the only criticism is – like many other drivers – he left the door open on the inside for an overtake in the first place.

Penske

This wasn’t the worst weekend by any stretch but for a team that won all three street course races this season – with a different one of its three drivers victorious in each – coming into this one, to have a best finish of ninth is disappointing.

Especially when McLaughlin was on for fourth before he left the door open at Turn 1 and Rahal took advantage, putting McLaughlin on the marbles. He had the whole stint to recover but wasn’t able to make inroads.

Josef Newgarden should have been third after the second stops but a poor stop where his right-rear change looked slow, the fuel hose was stretched and the car looked to be slightly out of position perhaps down to a cramped pitlane under caution meant he dropped down the order and finished 10th.

Second in the points coming to Toronto, Will Power was 15th in a messy race dominated by understeer Penske couldn’t dial out. He falls to 35 points off the championship lead and didn’t get the good fortune on strategy he’s had at his other races where he’s come back from a poor qualifying.