Hawksworth tops crash-hit qualifying

Jack Hawksworth has secured pole for the Firestone Indy Lights race after an eventful qualifying session on the Toronto street course.

On a morning where red flags put track time at a premium, Hawksworth moved to the top of the timing screens with 26 minutes remaining and them improved several times to keep ahead of points leader Carlos Munoz. The Brit's final pole time of 1m04.3994s, set on his final lap, proved to be just 0.03 second better than his rival's last-ditch effort.

"It was pretty crazy," said Hawksworth. "We never make it easy. I made a mistake on the first lap but after that the car was pretty decent, and I think we can improve it again for the race."

Hawksworth was actually the first driver to be involved in an incident when he hit the Turn 8 barriers on his out lap, but he escaped with nothing worse than a bent front wing. It was a different story a short time later when championship contender Sage Karam walled his car at Turn 5, bringing out the red flags for the first time.

Later, Zach Veach found the wall at Turn 1, bounced off, and collected the car of Peter Dempsey, bringing the reds out again. Both lost their fastest laps.

Gabby Chaves and Jorge Goncalvez capitalized on the high attrition rate to secure the second row of the grid ahead of Juan Pablo Garcia and Matthew Di Leo.