IndyCar Toronto: Herta tops Kirkwood in Andretti 1-2 in FP2

Colton Herta beat Kyle Kirkwood and Penske’s Will Power in the second 45-minute IndyCar Series practice session around the Streets of Toronto.

Herta set the early pace at 1m01.7519s, a time blown away by Power at 1m01.0441s and then 1m00.8014s on primary tires after 15 minutes. That was two tenths ahead of Penske’s Scott McLaughlin and four tenths clear of fellow title rivals Pato O’Ward (Arrow McLaren) and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou.

Herta retook the top spot at its halfway point with 1m00.7636s, still on primaries as the track evolved, and lowered that to 1m00.5763 on his next push lap.

Kirkwood was second fastest, 0.1374s in arrears, ahead of Power and Dixon, who were two tenths in arrears. “It’s typical for us to be fast on street course races and this one in particular suits us,” said Kirkwood. “I think the tenth and a half Colton has on us is easily findable.”

Palou was fifth quickest, ahead of McLaughlin, Rinus VeeKay (Ed Carpenter Racing), Josef Newgarden (Penske), Meyer Shank Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist and last year’s winner here Christian Lundgaard (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing).

O’Ward slumped back to 12th, sixth tenths off the pace.

Marcus Ericsson, who was running a new Honda engine (his fourth of the season) after a failure yesterday, was 14th.

There were plenty of incidents throughout, which started with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Pietro Fittipaldi nudging the tirewall after overshooting Turn 8 early on. Ganassi’s Marcus Armstrong whacked the kink at Turn 7, smiting the wall at the alternate finish line and damaging his left-rear corner.

VeeKay took to the escape road at Turn 3 after clipping the wall to his left under braking, while Rosenqvist got angry with Fittipaldi backing off in front of him. Dixon suffered a huge lock-up into Turn 8 and ran long just after he’d set the P4 time, just before McLaughlin overshot Turn 1.

Fittipaldi and O’Ward both suffered late overshoots at Turn 8.

The field was one car short, as the #7 Arrow McLaren is awaiting the arrival of Theo Pourchaire, who is flying from Zurich to Toronto and is scheduled to arrive at 12:50pm local time. He then has to catch the train to downtown, and he’ll be picked up by car at the station for the short trip to the west of the city.

This is following Alexander Rossi’s crash at Turn 8 that broke his right thumb on Friday.

Qualifying starts at 2:45pm.

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