Foster takes pole for IndyCar's inaugural race at Markham

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-Honda of Louis Foster will lead the NTT IndyCar Series field to the green flag tomorrow for the first Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham.

The 2024 Indy NXT champion turned the only 103mph lap of the new 2.19-mile street course to score his second pole at IndyCar level, in a thoroughly encouraging weekend for the RLL squad. Although Graham Rahal and Mick Schumacher will start only 10th and 11th, only rough circumstances in a messy Q2 session prevented them from contending in the Firestone Fast Six, too.

Instead, Christian Lundgaard will lead the Chevrolet contingent by joining Foster on the front row after he and the Arrow McLaren team whittled away at their deficit to prime contenders throughout the day and found a strong setup.

Scott McLaughlin will roll off third for Team Penske-Chevy alongside Marcus Ericsson (Andretti Global). Rookie Dennis Hauger was an outstanding fifth, while Rinus VeeKay continues his strong seam of form with sixth for Juncos Hollinger Racing.

The big news was how the stars fell: Will Power spun and stalled the Andretti No. 26, freshly repaired from his FP2 shunt, which brought out a red flag that ended teammate Kyle Kirkwood’s chances of getting into Q2. Josef Newgarden shunted and will start the race from the back along with Power. But the biggest shock of all was that in Q2, Palou set the fastest time and then also found the wall, thereby deleting his best time and leaving him 12th.

How it happened

Qualifying 1 Group 1

ECR-Chevrolet’s Christian Rasmussen was the first driver under 75 seconds with four minutes of the 10-minute session to go, setting an impressive 1min14.7008, although Kyffin Simpson in the repaired No. 8 Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda briefly took over P1. Dennis Hauger and Graham Rahal then pushed him down to P3, the former producing a 1m14.1952s as Caio Collet in his AJ Foyt Racing-Chevy, which he crashed at the end of second practice, abruptly slowed and brought out the red.

At the time of this stoppage, Alex Palou, Marcus Ericsson and Scott McLaughlin were all outside of the top six that would progress to the second segment of qualifying. Of course, Palou worked his magic with a 1m14.0990s and McLaughlin and Ericsson also got through, while Hauger, Graham Rahal and Scott Dixon hung on in there to complete the six.

Qualifying 1 Group 2

Louis Foster, who set the pace in second practice, delivered another great lap in Q1G2 with a 1m14.1045s, which no one could match initially, but then his teammate Mick Schumacher delivered the first 73sec lap, with a 1m13.9294. Then Malukas moved the bar by four tenths, with a 1m13.4758s – a 102.891mph lap. Foster and Alexander Rossi also eclipsed Schumacher, while the McLarens of Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’Ward also held fifth and sixth when Will Power in the repaired Andretti Global No. 26 spun at Turn 4 and brought out the red.

The timing was terrible for his teammate Kyle Kirkwood, Felix Rosenqvist and Rinus VeeKay, among others, who had time for only one flying lap and couldn’t shake the top six. Team Penske bookended the times as Josef Newgarden hit the Turn 10 wall and ripped off a wheel to end the session. Then came word that O’Ward had been penalized for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner that killed Grosjean’s hopes. The loss of the Arrow McLaren driver’s fastest laps allowed VeeKay through to Q2.

Qualifying 2

The only team with all their cars into the Top 12 shootout was the Rahal Letterman Lanigan armada. Hauger and Rahal were into the 1m14s on their first flying laps on red, as was Scott Dixon, but Alex Palou delivered a 1min13.8040s – and then crashed at Turn 10, clipping the inside wall and hitting the outside wall, bringing out the red flag.

The green flew with 2m34s to go, enough for two laps, with VeeKay, Hauger, Rahal, Dixon, Lundgaard and Ericsson in the top six, but their positions looked vulnerable, especially with Foster, Malukas and McLaughlin on the outside and with a second lap to get their cars to optimum temperature.

Ericsson bounced to the top with a 1m14.0190, chased by McLaughlin, Hauger, VeeKay, Lundgaard and Foster. Malukas missing out and Lundgaard clinging on were the main surprises.

Firestone Fast Six

That meant six teams were in the top six, and the two engine manufacturers were represented evenly. They had just six minutes to lay down their laps – which was just as well as the session began just before 8pm, so they were now chasing daylight.

VeeKay left the pits first pursued by Hauger, McLaughlin, Lundgaard, Ericsson and Foster. At last, there was enough separation for no one to interfere with a rival’s flying lap – providing no one made a significant error.

Hauger put in a 1m14.8617, easily shaded by Ericsson’s low 14.1 but then Foster’s 1min13.3739 seemed to end the pole battle with a knockout punch. Lundgaard and McLaughlin were in the 13.9s, but then Foster lowered the benchmark to a 1m13.2383s and pitted with a minute to go. Lundgaard and McLaughlin trimmed their deficit to around 0.4s, enough to stay ahead of Ericsson, Hauger and VeeKay.

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