Herta to the top in Saturday Toronto practice

Saturday morning’s practice session for the Honda Indy Toronto was a testament to track evolution as the fastest early lap set by Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Louis Foster was improved by a full 1.7 seconds as Andretti Global’s Colton Herta set the pace with a 1m00.058s in the No. 26 Honda.

Toronto’s 2024 polesitter led an Andretti 1-2 with Kyle Kirkwood in the No. 27 Honda (1m00.158s) and they were followed by a Team Penske 3-4 with Josef Newgarden in the No. 2 Chevy (1m00.588s) and Scott McLaughlin in the No. 3 Chevy (1m00.628s). Pato O’Ward was fifth in the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevy (1m00.689s) and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon completed the top six in the No. 9 Honda (1m00.730s).

“Track gripped up a lot in that session,” Kirkwood said. “Kept getting faster and faster. We’ll see what happens in qualifying. So far, so good.”

The 45-minute session got under way with beautiful clear skies above and an overnight repaving job done by the city in the bumpy Turn 3 brake zone and it didn’t appear to improve the problems seen on Friday as drivers continued to bounce over a large bump on entry to the section and lock tires and make use of the runoff area.

After 15 minutes of running, Louis Foster was the fastest at 1m01.750s ahead of Alex Palou, Kyle Kirkwood, Colton Herta, Pato O’Ward, and David Malukas.

Twenty minutes in, Herta improved from P4 to P3 and Kyffin Simpson moved to P5. Two minutes later, Nolan Siegel shot to P3 and then Alexander Rossi and Marcus Ericsson went to P1 and P2, respectively, at the 22-minute halfway point in the session.

Rossi’s 1m01.471s standard lasted about a lap before Simpson took P1 with a 1m01.301s as the track continued to improve.

After 29 minutes of running, Kirkwood took over P1 with a 1m00.367s lap to lead Simpson’s 1m01.301s by nearly a full second. Will Power improved to P2 at 1m00.734s and the lap battles were on.

Palou was next to move, taking P3, and then Herta leapt to P2. With 12 minutes remaining, the top six was Kirkwood, Herta, Power, O’Ward, Palou, and Graham Rahal, but each lap was bringing changes.

Scott McLaughlin motored to P3 with 10 minutes left, and then it was Penske teammate Josef Newgarden who improved to P4. With eight minutes to go, it was Andretti’s Herta jumping up to P1 with a 1m00.058s and Kirkwood with Penske’s Newgarden, McLaughlin, and Power from P3-P5.

Diving down to six minutes remining, Scott Dixon went to P5 but he was replaced in P5 by O’Ward as the session came to an end under caution as Jacob Abel crashed on approach to the checkered flag. He climbed from the car, which had broken left and right suspensions, and walked away.

UP NEXT: Qualifying, 2:35pm ET.

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