IndyCar Toronto: Herta fastest in 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-tire run yesterday ­– 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 with 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.

Qualifying starts at 2:50pm local time with rain forecast.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport	24	1'00.5657			106.159
2	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti Autosport	20	1'00.5972	0.0315	0.0315	106.104
3	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	25	1'00.6350	0.0693	0.0378	106.038
4	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	30	1'00.6802	0.1145	0.0452	105.959
5	Patricio O'Ward	Arrow McLaren	26	1'00.7054	0.1397	0.0252	105.915
6	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	28	1'00.7366	0.1709	0.0312	105.860
7	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	27	1'00.8316	0.2659	0.0950	105.695
8	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	28	1'00.8652	0.2995	0.0336	105.637
9	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	26	1'00.9153	0.3496	0.0501	105.550
10	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing	25	1'00.9255	0.3598	0.0102	105.532
11	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	26	1'01.0220	0.4563	0.0965	105.365
12	Will Power	Team Penske	22	1'01.0615	0.4958	0.0395	105.297
13	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	26	1'01.0626	0.4969	0.0011	105.295
14	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	29	1'01.0901	0.5244	0.0275	105.248
15	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren	17	1'01.0910	0.5253	0.0009	105.246
16	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	30	1'01.1415	0.5758	0.0505	105.159
17	Santino Ferrucci	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	28	1'01.1655	0.5998	0.0240	105.118
18	Rinus van Kalmthout	Ed Carpenter Racing	24	1'01.2148	0.6491	0.0493	105.033
19	Marcus Armstrong	Chip Ganassi Racing	25	1'01.3510	0.7853	0.1362	104.800
20	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	22	1'01.4285	0.8628	0.0775	104.668
21	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Autosport	23	1'01.4390	0.8733	0.0105	104.650
22	Benjamin Pedersen	A.J. Foyt Enterprises	30	1'01.4481	0.8824	0.0091	104.635
23	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger Racing	25	1'01.4649	0.8992	0.0168	104.606
24	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Ed Carpenter Racing	25	1'01.5281	0.9624	0.0632	104.499
25	Alexander Rossi	Arrow McLaren	28	1'01.5938	1.0281	0.0657	104.387
26	Ray Robb	Dale Coyne Racing	26	1'02.3547	1.7890	0.7609	103.113
27	Tom Blomqvist	Meyer Shank Racing	24	1'02.6984	2.1327	0.3437	102.548
View full results