Sunday Update from Toronto
Another interesting note is if the race is not designated as a wet start, all the drivers will start the race on the alternate (red) tire except for Spencer Pigot, who will be starting on his primary, black tires.
7/16/17 The sun is shinning in Toronto, Canada on this race day morning. But the picture could turn ugly this afternoon if we get the predicted thunderstorms. The rain will not start until 2 pm which would be after the morning warmup for the IndyCars scheduled today for 11:30 am. Simon Pagenaud, the driver of the No. 1 DXC Technology Team Penske Chevrolet, will lead the 21-car field to the green flag for today's 85-lap race on the 1.786-mile temporary street circuit. Pagenaud is currently 31 points behind Scott Dixon and could take the point lead in the championship if he wins this race. Pagenaud realizes that winning the race is the focus.
Pagenaud had this to say about his qualifying effort and the race outlook. "I think I've done my job into qualifying. Now we've got to forget about pace over one lap, right. I've got to extract the best out of the tires, the car. I've got to be as close as possible to the wall. I'll tell you, I took all the risk necessary in Turn 11, for example, to get a little tense here and there."
"If I do that in the race, I won't finish the race. So it's a different approach. I've got to set up my car a little differently for the race, maybe a little less aggressive with the rear end of the car to actually keep my tires underneath me and be stronger the whole stint. And like you said, we don't know what the forecast is going to be. That's the one thing you can't control, so we're all going to have to adapt to that. But it's the same for everybody."
Scott Dixon, the New Zealander who is looking for his fifth IndyCar Championship, knows his way around this track. Dixon has finished on the podium here in three of the last eight races. He has seven top-five finishes in the 12 starts, including the 2 wins in 2013 when we still had the double header.
Yesterday Dixon was using every inch of the race track to get his car in the Firestone Fast Six. He managed to scrape the paint off the edge of his front wing in the Saturday morning practice and then left some scrapes from a concrete wall on the back wing during qualifying.
Dixon had this to say after his qualifying run yesterday. "It's just really been a rough weekend for us as far as speed. Well, even just to drive the car has been a handful and really hard to keep control of it. I think this morning we were P17 so we made some good strides to make it to the Firestone Fast Six and ultimately fifth. I think we had enough time maybe to jump fourth there, but hit the wall really hard in Turn 6 there my second lap there, which had some good speed in it, and then I think I bent the suspension after that."
"All in all, good recovery. I've got a lot of work to get done to make the car a little bit better for tomorrow in the race, and the competition is definitely very strong right now. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully we can get a little bit lucky. Led most of the race last year until we got hosed on a yellow there and went to the back. Maybe we can have our way tomorrow."
I will keep you updated through the day.
Lucille Dust reporting live from Toronto
07/16/17 The sun is shinning in Toronto, Canada on this race day morning. But the picture could turn ugly this afternoon if we get the predicted thunderstorms. The rain will not start until 2 pm which would be after the morning warmup for the IndyCars scheduled today for 11:30 am. Simon Pagenaud, the driver of the No. 1 DXC Technology Team Penske Chevrolet, will lead the 21-car field to the green flag for today's 85-lap race on the 1.786-mile temporary street circuit. Pagenaud is currently 31 points behind Scott Dixon and could take the point lead in the championship if he wins this race. Pagenaud realizes that winning the race is the focus.
Pagenaud had this to say about his qualifying effort and the race outlook. "I think I've done my job into qualifying. Now we've got to forget about pace over one lap, right. I've got to extract the best out of the tires, the car. I've got to be as close as possible to the wall. I'll tell you, I took all the risk necessary in Turn 11, for example, to get a little tense here and there."
"If I do that in the race, I won't finish the race. So it's a different approach. I've got to set up my car a little differently for the race, maybe a little less aggressive with the rear end of the car to actually keep my tires underneath me and be stronger the whole stint. And like you said, we don't know what the forecast is going to be. That's the one thing you can't control, so we're all going to have to adapt to that. But it's the same for everybody."
Scott Dixon, the New Zealander who is looking for his fifth IndyCar Championship, knows his way around this track. Dixon has finished on the podium here in three of the last eight races. He has seven top-five finishes in the 12 starts, including the 2 wins in 2013 when we still had the double header.
Yesterday Dixon was using every inch of the race track to get his car in the Firestone Fast Six. He managed to scrape the paint off the edge of his front wing in the Saturday morning practice and then left some scrapes from a concrete wall on the back wing during qualifying.
Dixon had this to say after his qualifying run yesterday. "It's just really been a rough weekend for us as far as speed. Well, even just to drive the car has been a handful and really hard to keep control of it. I think this morning we were P17 so we made some good strides to make it to the Firestone Fast Six and ultimately fifth. I think we had enough time maybe to jump fourth there, but hit the wall really hard in Turn 6 there my second lap there, which had some good speed in it, and then I think I bent the suspension after that."
"All in all, good recovery. I've got a lot of work to get done to make the car a little bit better for tomorrow in the race, and the competition is definitely very strong right now. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully we can get a little bit lucky. Led most of the race last year until we got hosed on a yellow there and went to the back. Maybe we can have our way tomorrow."
I will keep you updated through the day.
Lucille Dust reporting live from Toronto