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Charles Bradley

IndyCar Toronto: Dixon fastest from Kirkwood in warm-up

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 14th 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 15th 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 19th fastest, while Rosenqvist slipped to last.

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

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

 

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