The final street course stop in the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series is up next with the 37th running of the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto.
With the long Lakeshore Boulevard, the 11-turn, 1.786-mile circuit winds through Exhibition Place under the shadows of downtown Toronto.
There are only five races left in the season, so the fight may not be for the championship, but multiple teams are looking to join Scott Dixon and Pato O’Ward in the win column against Alex Palou and Kyle Kirkwood.
Last Year
Colton Herta broke a 41-race winless streak when he took the checkered from pole at Toronto in 2024. It was his first win since the Indianapolis Grand Prix in 2022. The result was a springboard for Herta to rack up four more top fives in the last five races to jump to second in points after a second win on the year at Nashville.
A red flag came out with 13 laps to go after a big crash involving multiple cars, including a flip by Santino Ferrucci, who walked away.
Alexander Rossi missed the race with a broken thumb suffered in practice, prompting Arrow McLaren to bring back Theo Pourchaire to fill in for him.
The King Returns
Kirkwood has won two of the three street courses run in 2025, and is hitting his best type of track at a good time. At the doubleheaders at Iowa, the entire Andretti Global operation missed the setup, with Kirkwood suffering the worst. After crashing in opening practice, he never showed pace the rest of the weekend, finishing 26th in Race 1 — his first DNF of the year — and 18th in the Sunday feature.
Not surprisingly, he finished second at Toronto in 2024, following Herta across the line.
Happy Newgarden
Josef Newgarden likes Toronto; he’s won there twice, but hasn’t done so since his first year at Team Penske in 2017. In recent years, his consistent front-running pace hasn’t been there on road and street courses, but for a time, he was a contender there, leading 120 laps between 2015 to 2018. Since then, it’s been rough, with a best finish of fourth.
Iowa weekend wasn’t up to his standards, and he lost out on two very likely wins if things had worked his way. Perhaps this Sunday things will change for the better.
Herta Goes For Repeat
Last year’s winner, Herta, has had a headache of a year, which seems to be commonplace across the paddock. Since he finished a season-best third at Detroit, he’s managed only one other top five, a fourth at Mid-Ohio. It’s also his only top 10 in that same span.
His win in 2024 was the latest in a three-race run of podiums at Toronto. If he can keep that up one more time, he can either tie or earn his best result in 2025. Unfortunately, climbing back to his career best of second in points doesn’t seem feasible before the year is out.
Lundgaard’s First Win
Arrow McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard won his only IndyCar race at Toronto in 2023 with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. Through that whole year, the win was just his third top five, and he added one more four races later.
This year, in the first four races, he started hot with three top fives and was chasing Palou in points heading to the Sonsio Grand Prix in May. Well, the mix of ovals and a bad run at Road America has slowed his start, with only one other top five at Mid-Ohio. But he’s won at Toronto before, and this can easily be the place he grabs his first with McLaren.
What Else?
O’Ward jumped to second in the championship standings during the Iowa weekend, entering Toronto with a 44-point cushion over Dixon. But Exhibition Place hasn’t been a great event for him, with a best of eighth.
Dixon, meanwhile, is the winningest active driver at Toronto, with four victories, his last in 2022. His last finish there outside the top 10 was in 2012, so he has history on his side if O’Ward falters to cut into that second-place gap. Unfortunately, he has a six-place grid penalty after qualifying for an engine change.
Can Palou win here? Yes. Has he? No. It’s one of five tracks he hasn’t conquered on the calendar. His best result is a second in 2023.
Rossi missed last year due to an injury, so in his first race there with Ed Carpenter Racing, he will look to get a top 10, something he hasn’t done since Detroit. In the first seven races, he had four top 10s, but zero since.
Frontstretch Predictions
Changing it up and not picking Palou. Instead, it will be Lundgaard who wins the race, getting his second IndyCar triumph of his career.
Kirkwood will finish second, which will help him not lose too much ground to Lundgaard who is behind him in points.
Palou will be third, because why not?
- Lundgaard
- Kirkwood
- Palou
Coverage for the 90-lap Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto starts at 12 p.m. ET, Sunday (July 20), on FOX.
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and frequent editions of Inside IndyCar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.