Fingers crossed for a good race in the north.
This weekend is the last race for the NTT IndyCar Series before the four-week Olympic break starts, and what better race to reignite the on-track battles than the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto.
A historic race, dating back 1986, with a rich connection to the American open-wheel series, the 11-turn, 1.78-mile circuit has been a foundational connection to IndyCar fans in Canada.
It is the last street course in 2024 and is embedded with multiple storylines to follow, including the hybrid’s debut on this type of track, the championship battle heating up and a first-time winner looking to repeat.
Last Year
Christian Lundgaard won his first race in IndyCar at this event in 2023. His green No. 45 Hy-Vee Honda was the class of the field, winning from the pole. It wasn’t easy though, as he had to work his way through the field as a yellow set him back. The winning pass was even on eventual-champion Alex Palou.
At the start, a parking lot formed after multiple cars wrecked. That would be in-line with a lot of the first laps in the series this year, but some of that has cooled over the last few events.
Hybrids Part III
This will be the third race with the new hybrids. At Mid-Ohio and Iowa, the reviews have been mixed. No doubt the technology is cool, but it’s positive impact at the road course was minimal since most drivers were using it at the same time, and at the doubleheader it was one of several ingredients that turned the show into a parade.
Now the final discipline – a street course – will get a hybrid trial. As I’ve written and stated before, the technology is a positive for the series. But the implementation might have been rushed or second- and third-order effects unforeseen which has dried up the on-track racing product.
Toronto is a tight street circuit, as construction in and around the Exhibition Place has slowly eroded the original layout. The hybrid could benefit on a track where it’s hard to pass, helping drivers set up more overtakes, or be neutralized as everyone uses it at the same time and becomes more of a defensive tool versus offensive.
Olympic Break
When the checkered flag falls on Sunday (Aug. 21), IndyCar teams will take a collective breath and have some time to relax. With NBC Sports’ exclusive media deal for the Summer Olympics, the series will take a forced four-week hiatus as after this weekend there will be no room on the calendar for a race to be aired. The NASCAR Cup Series is facing a similar vacation, albeit shorter.
This is a good time for teams to assess their year and look towards the rest of the season, determining paths forward. As mentioned on The Pit Straight this week, it’s a good time for IndyCar to review their year as well and do some strategic analysis of their current situation. Key items to look at it include the hybris, charters (we also touched on this before), more marketing, and even some partnership building within the paddock.
With the mid-season hybrid deployment, there just seems to be a bit of a discombobulation in the paddock between owners and the series, and most importantly with fans. Confusion and frustration from the stands as to the impact the new technology has had on the racing has hampered growth this year and more talk is on the ancillary talking points than the events on track.
This is a good time to refocus on making the series the closest, most exciting to watch motorsport in the world.
You Say There Is A Chance?
Will Power had a good weekend at Iowa. Not great, as his Saturday night race result, though a bummer as he finished 18th, still netted him five points over championship leader Palou.
Then the next day, he got a Scott Dixon-type yellow flag break as he mentioned in his post-race conference and leveraged that to win the race over Palou. That earned him eight more points.
Palou cycled to the front due to the same yellow flag luck as Power, which isn’t something to degrade because that is exactly how championships are won sometimes.
Heading into Toronto, Power can continue to chip away and roll into the Olympic break feeling confident about the rest of his year. If he has a poor result on Sunday, then the next few weeks will be weighing on him as he pursues his third championship.
Too bad for him, Toronto has really hit him with a hammer since his last of three career wins there in 2016. His best result was a 14th last year. Yikes.
Lundgaard’s First Win
The Dane put his Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team back in victory lane in 2023, which also made him a top free-agent prospect this year. With his announcement he is moving to Arrow McLaren Racing, he is in his final stretch with the team that gave him a shot in IndyCar just three years ago.
When he landed in Toronto last year, he had notched two top fives and five top 10s. This weekend, he isn’t bringing that same stat line to the paddock. At the Sonsio Grand Prix in Indianapolis, he finished third, but only two other top 10s followed. His race pace on road and street circuits, his bread and butter, isn’t matching the performance from a year ago.
So, not only does he seem to be slightly challenged in repeating, he only has one more road course after this weekend to grab a good result on tracks he usually excels.
The Rest Of The Field
Palou did give up some points at Iowa, but he won’t be sweating too much this weekend. He finished second to Lundgaard last year, and a sixth at his only other attempt at Toronto. His 35-point lead looks safe so far.
Rinus VeeKay had a stellar Iowa weekend, finishing fifth and ninth respectively. His 2024 hasn’t been much to talk about, but is sitting 13th in points. While Lundgaard was seen as a hot free agent target, the one-time much discussed VeeKay doesn’t seem to have as many options to jump to next year, so he needs to ramp up the results to regain his attractiveness to other squads.
After getting his first oval win, followed by a third-place result the next day, Scott McLaughlin will be in high spirits. As he claimed in victory lane, he feels he is truly an IndyCar driver (come on, you know you were accepted as one long ago). His last five races include one win, three thirds, and a 21st at Laguna Seca. In the famous words of the NBA Jam announcer, ‘He’s heating up!’
Dale Coyne Racing is bringing back Toby Sowery for the next two road and street circuits. He finished a respectable 13th at Mid-Ohio and seemed to get more out of the car than anyone else did this year. Also they will debut another rookie, Hunter McElrea, who ran Indy NXT for two seasons, netting four wins.
Frontstretch Predictions
Hey, Iowa wasn’t too bad for myself and Wyatt Watson, who covered the race on the ground for Frontstretch. We hit on the correct drivers that would at least get podiums in Race 1.
This weekend it feels experience will come through for victory. While Lundgaard is the defending winner, it would be a surprise that he runs up front, now watch me be totally wrong. Palou feels like the good call here, so lets go with him.
- Palou – rebounds from losing points to Power at Iowa.
- McLaughlin – maybe folks should worry about him more as he has the confidence of accepting himself as an IndyCar driver now.
- Power – breaks his rotten streak at Toronto.
The Ontario Honda Dealers Toronto Indy at Toronto will start at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 21, with coverage exclusively on Peacock.
About the author
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and the occasional Inside Indycar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. His full-time job is with the Department of Veterans Affairs History Office and is a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard. After graduating from Purdue University with a Creative Writing degree, he was commissioned in the Army and served a 15-month deployment as a tank platoon leader with the 3d ACR in Mosul, Iraq. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.