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The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto has been known in the past to give some surprise results. Colton Herta winning on Sunday was certainly not a surprise. He won the pole and led every practice session. But based on where some drivers started yesterday, I was surprised to see some of them end up where they did.

The most notable of that bunch was Alex Palou. When he was issued a questionable penalty during Saturday’s qualifying session that resulted in him being pushed back to the eighteenth spot on the grid, I figured I had cursed another driver by picking them to win.

I’ll be honest – I really did not want Palou to win, because the championship needs to tighten up at the top. I did not pick Palou because I wanted him to win, I just thought that he would. As it turns out, had he not been penalized and started at or near the front, he probably would have won. As it was, Palou finished fourth and increased his lead in the championship over Will Power. Palou had a thirty-five point lead going into the weekend, and left Toronto with a forty-nine point cushion.

For a race that saw no change for the lead except on pit stop shuffles, yesterday’s race was pretty compelling. Not only did you have Palou starting from deep in the pack, you also had three Ganassi cars finish in the Top-Five after none of them started higher than thirteenth; while no Penske car finished in the Top-Ten, after all three started between ninth and fourth. It also Andretti Global win its first race of the season, and also have one-two finish. Arrow McLaren had Alexander Rossi break his thumb in Friday’s practice, saw Theo Pourchaire fly from France and arrive at the track one hour before qualifying to replace him and then saw Pourchaire have the best day among his teammates – finishing fourteenth. It was that kind of day.

The race saw twenty-seven cars start the race, while only fifteen were still running when the checkered flag flew. It was that kind of day.

It was probably just as well that the race was run exclusively on Peacock. Had it run on Big NBC, presidential politics would have (probably) moved it to CNBC for the second consecutive weekend. I say “probably” because I did not check NBC or any other network after it was announced that President Biden was dropping out of the race. I saw it on Twitter during the race, but figured the story would still be there afterwards. It was that kind of day.

Congratulations to Colton Herta for ending his forty-one race winless streak and doing so in a dominating fashion. Leading eighty-one of eighty-five laps is my idea of domination. Congratulations also go to Kyle Kirkwood and Andretti Global for their one-two finish and being smart about it – not having teammates ruin a strong finish for both, by being boneheaded. It was that kind of day.

TV Coverage: For the first time this season, the malady that so many complain about bit my own TV. For years, sometimes races on NBC have bad audio where the engine sounds drown out the commentary. If Todd Harris was the one doing the talking, that would’ve been a blessing. But I actually wanted to hear what the booth guys and pit reporters had to say. Just this past week, someone tweeted a fix for this in to Trackside, saying the problem was with the TV’s audio settings and not the broadcast. Well, I tried the fix on Saturday and it didn’t work. I have Apple TV as my streaming device in the den, but I have a Roku device in the bedroom. Both were doing it. I watch all practices and qualifying and I have never had a problem with it this season, until this weekend. We’ll blame it on Canada.

I am not as enamored with Charlie Kimball as a pit reporter as some are. I realize this was only his third weekend, but he has a lot of ground to make up to be on the level with his other fellow pit reporters. Dillon Welch did a good job, and Kimball made him seem even better. I missed Georgia Henneberry this weekend.

Kevin Lee had what I thought was another stellar weekend as the main booth anchor. The calendar is working out nicely for him as he gets several auditions as the series moves to FOX next season. Every week, I am more and more convinced that Lee should get the full time booth anchor gig at FOX. His biggest asset? He doesn’t talk too much, and sets up James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell to let the actual racers in the booth do most of the talking. Older football fans will remember how the great Pat Summerall recognized that he wasn’t the star in the booth – John Madden was. Summerall’s talent was setting things up for Madden. Why do you think I referred to him as great?

The National Anthems: In a week where we have been witness to the horrible rendition of our National Anthem at MLB’s Home Run Derby on Monday night, then many other bad ones from the past dredged up on social media all week – it was good to hear it done right for a change. Canadian singer Natalie Morris belted out a proper version of the US National Anthem, then followed that up with a stirring rendition of the Canadian National Anthem. I am not a singer (thankfully), but I understand that both anthems are very hard to sing. She did a stellar job on both of them.

A Bad Trend: For the first five races (including Thermal) of the season, Felix Rosenqvist was a very pleasant surprise. He had rescued his new Meyer Shank Racing team from the abyss, as he migrated over from Arrow McLaren after last season. In that span, Rosenqvist had two poles, another front row start, and another start in the Firestone Fast Six. He also had five Top-Ten finishes, with an average finish of 6.2 in that span. And then it all went terribly wrong.

Rosenqvist is still qualifying well for the most part, but his race results don’t show it. Since the Sonsio Grand Prix where he finished tenth; Rosenqvist has only one Top-Ten (eighth at Detroit). His finishes for the past eight races are 27th, 8th, 14th, 11th, 14th, 13th, 26th and 23rd in yesterday’s race. When he tangled with Marcus Ericsson in Turn Three, it wasn’t his fault – but he had already dropped back a few spots after starting third. His engine failure in the Indianapolis 500 wasn’t his fault either, but he is now in a definite pattern of wasting excellent qualifying efforts with little to show for them.

Impressive Change: Although I’m sure I’ve seen it before, and Townsend Bell made it sound like it happened occasionally – I can’t recall when I’ve ever seen a steering wheel changed during a routine pit stop. Graham Rahal and his team did it on his first pit stop on Lap 31, and it was so seamless it appeared to be second nature. Bell and Hinch estimated the swap added less than two seconds to the entire pit stop. Unfortunately for Rahal, the swap did not fix the display problem that he was experiencing. But it was impressive watching the unusual choreography on display.

Boneheaded Move: I consider myself a Will Power fan, but he pulled the bonehead move of the race, when he attempted an ill-advised pass on his teammate Scott McLaughlin that ended with McLaughlin in the Turn Five wall on Lap 77. Power ended up with a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact. McLaughlin was running fourth at the time, and Power was in fifth. McLaughlin ended up finishing sixteenth, with Power in twelfth after serving the penalty – essentially ruining good finishes for both. To rub salt in the Penske wound, Josef Newgarden went too hard into Turn Three on the same lap and made slight contact with the tire barrier; forcing him to pit and change tires. All three drivers were running in the Top-Ten at the beginning of Lap 77. By the end of the race on Lap 85, none of them were.

Where was the Yellow? The biggest and most talked-about incident of the day occurred on Lap 73, between Turns One and Two. Pato O’Ward was running fifth when he simply lost the back-end of the car and lazily backed his car into the outside wall. He sat in harms way for a brief moment before Marcus Ericsson plowed into the right side of O’Ward’s car – sending the nose of O’Ward a little further out into the main groove. That’s when things got ugly – and scary. Pietro Fittipaldi came around the corner at full speed and hit the nose of O’Ward’s car, that acted as a ramp that launched Fittipaldi into the air briefly.

It got worse as Santino Ferrucci followed Fittipaldi into the crash scene at speed. Ferrucci’s car was launched bottom-first, high into the catch fence and landed upside down. Nolan Siegel followed Ferrucci and was the third car in a row to hit the nose of O’Ward after Ericsson had already hit him hard.

The red flag was displayed as the AMR Safety Team had to turn an AJ Foyt car back over for the second week in a row. This is one of those times when a red flag was totally justified, as there was debris scattered all over the track. Altogether there were six cars involved, and five that were unable to continue. A few drivers were pretty banged up, but fortunately – there was no serious injuries (at least as I write this).

The booth announcers danced around this gingerly, but the drivers involved didn’t. Where was the yellow? When there is a caution period, the red lights on the trailing edge of the rear wing and on the end of the attenuator flash red. Replays show that those lights all came on at the same time, just as Ferrucci was up in the catch fence. I’ve paused the video below (from NBC Sports) and it shows that at least six seconds elapse between O’Ward’s spin and when the caution is displayed to the field. That’s too long.

Ferrucci said in his interview that he had no idea there was a problem when he rounded the corner and came upon the helpless O’Ward. Pato was even less diplomatic, saying that it must’ve been five seconds before the yellow came out – exposing him to hard hit after hard hit. We are all fortunate that the only result from this was a lot of needlessly damaged race cars.

I know things happen quickly, but there are three stewards in Race Control. It seems that all three took their eyes off of the monitors for a few seconds. I wasn’t in Race Control, and I never have been. I cannot speak intelligently as to how things are done or what goes on in there. But from what I saw after Pato O’Ward spun, my untrained eye tells me that should not be allowed to happen.

Honda Dominance: Not since qualifying for this year’s Indianapolis 500, have we seen such dominance on paper for one engine manufacturer over another. Eight of the Top-Ten finishers were powered by Honda. The highest placed Chevy was driven by Rinus VeeKay, who finished eighth. Four of the Firestone Fast Six were also Hondas. Honda won the pole and the race. Of course, the situation will probably reverse itself next month when the series goes to Gateway, but for now – Honda has almost four weeks to enjoy the spoils of victory.

Drive of the Day: There were several drivers who moved up many spots from their original starting positions. Alex Palou almost completely overcame his penalty from qualifying and moved from eighteenth to finish fourth. Scott Dixon started fifteenth and finished third. The defending race winner, Christian Lundgaard, stared sixteenth and finished seventh. Rinus VeeKay finished eighth after starting back in twenty-second.

At first glance, I thought Palou seemed like the obvious choice. I believe he moved up more positions than anyone. His car may have even been faster than Herta’s, but he never had the clear track to prove it. The I looked at Scott Dixon moving from fifteenth to third. But that’s what Scott Dixon does, so the bar is set a little higher for him.

In this case, I’m going with a driver that seems to have had the light suddenly turn on for him. In the last three races, he has put together three Top-Ten finishes after having two the whole season prior to Iowa. He comes from an underfunded team and yesterday was saddled with the Chevy engine that was not the engine of choice for Toronto. He has been needing some decent results for his future and he is getting them at the right time. Who am I talking about? Rinus VeeKay.

All in All: Between road courses street circuits, short ovals and superspeedways; street circuits are my least favorite types of IndyCar races. But even though there was a lot of carnage and attrition – even before the huge crash on Lap 73 – I found yesterday’s race from Toronto to be very entertaining. I’ve seen on social media that many are calling yesterday’s race a crash fest. While there were five cautions for at total of fifteen laps and a red flag, there was a stint of full green from Lap 7 to Lap 68. Almost all pits stops were made under green.

It’s true there was nothing going on between first and second place all day, but there was a ton of action from fourth place on back. If you found yesterday’s race from Toronto boring, I am not sure what to tell you.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on July 22, 2024 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.