IndyCar: Kirkwood tops opening practice in Toronto

Led by Kyle Kirkwood in the #27 Honda, the Andretti Autosport Team dominated opening practice for the Honda Indy Toronto with three cars in the top-5 on the washboard street circuit around Exhibition Place.

With 40 seconds remaining in the session, Kirkwood turned a lap of 1m00.8075s to nip his #28 Andretti teammate Romain Grosjean by 0.0500s and his #26 Andretti teammate Colton Herta by 0.1060s in 4th.

In between was Felix Rosenqvist in the #6 Arrow McLaren Chevy in third.

Rounding out the top-5 was Scott McLaughlin in the #3 Penske Chevy, 0.1625s

“It went phenomenal for us,” Kirkwood said. “We kind of led the whole session. Andretti Autosport does a fantastic job at setting up these street-course cars, specifically. Fingers crossed. You expect to see some more of that. It’s a good start for us, but we’ve got to keep the thing going.”

IMSA ace Tom Blomqvist got his first taste of an IndyCar race weekend, subbing for Simon Pagenaud at Meyer Shank Racing. He finished the session 26th, almost 3s off the pace but kept the car off the walls.

Whole lot of new today for @tom_blomqvist. #INDYCAR // #IndyTO pic.twitter.com/OVoBU7J4Fl

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) July 14, 2023

It is interesting that on Twitter, Kyle Kirkwood follows these Formula 1 teams. Like every good IndyCar driver, Kirkwood likely has dreams of someday moving up to F1.

All eyes this weekend are on championship leader Alex Palou, who is trying to become just the sixth driver since 1970 to win four consecutive INDYCAR SERIES races, joining Al Unser (1970) Al Unser Jr. (1990), Alex Zanardi (1998), Cristiano Da Matta (2002) and Sebastien Bourdais (2006). Palou, who leads the series by a healthy 110 points, ended up 12th at 1:01.3233 in the No. 10 Journie Rewards Honda.

Second practice starts on Saturday at 10:35am Eastern Time.

Toronto Practice 1 Results