Ilott's struggles come good with eighth in Toronto

Callum Ilott was understandably glum after hitting the Iowa Speedway walls twice in two days with the No. 90 PREMA Racing Chevy, and while his eighth-place finish in Toronto wasn’t a cause for exuberant celebrations, it did represent his best result of the year and the best for PREMA Racing during its debut IndyCar season.

Ilott was fast in qualifying as he made the Firestone Fast 12 and set the No. 90 in 12th for the start. From there, it was 90 laps of being quick and smart as the Italian team made its presence felt on the unforgiving street course.

The circuit also added a layer of difficulty when Ilott tried to avoid the Turn 1 wreck that involved five cars, but he persevered to claim his top finish since running to fifth in 2023 at Laguna Seca in what would be his farewell drive for Juncos Hollinger Racing.

“Overall, a really solid end to the race,” Ilott said. “It got a bit unlucky with the way the yellows played out and some guys managed to box before us and get the jump, so that put us a bit further back. Then there was the carnage that happened in Turn 1. We had to box and change the front wing and it put us in a good position to top up with fuel.

“I'm not sure we needed it, but it opened up the window for us and then then we had a really good pace on the primaries and were able to jump a lot of people around me. It was a solid end and nice to finally get a top 10.”

The Briton's Indy 500 pole-sitting teammate Robert Shwartzman was fast as well and saw his name flash inside the top 10, but his No. 83 Chevy team used the same strategy as Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou by waiting until the midpoint of the race to run Firestone’s alternate tires. He’d start and finish 20th.