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Charles Bradley

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