For 13 competitors, today was their first experience behind the wheel of an IndyCar in the streets of toronto. The other 12 had already competed on this track before, and they knew what they were coming for. One of them is alexander rossi, who in the absence of Canadian victories knows what it is to get on the podium twice. Still immersed in his particular fight to return to the highest drawer, the American driver was the fastest in a competitive and interrupted first practice session at Indy Toronto.
the pilot of Andretti Autosportmired in controversy two weeks ago at Mid-Ohio over his incidents with two teammates, made the most of his soft tires in the final minutes to post a time of 1:00.609, trailing by 90 thousandths a Simon Pagenaudthe last winner of the event in 2019. The French driver acted as the unbeatable ‘cicerone’ for Meyer Shank Racing, a team that competes for the first time in Toronto as its full-time expansion coincides with the pandemic.
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Braving the bad feelings of a dreadful season for his team, Graham Rahl He got the third fastest time. After him, the leader of the general finished Marcus Ericsonwhich continues to perform at a high level in global terms, and one of its main pursuers, Joseph Newgarden, which is 34 points behind the Swedish. It was necessary to go down to ninth place to find his partner Will Powerthe closest driver to Ericsson in the table by just 20 points.
After the extraordinary events of the week, Alex Palou turned heads, and the Spanish driver responded with a more than decent performance in his first real experience of urban Toronto. It took him very little time to get into competitive times, leading the session with 10 minutes remaining, and although his tenth position may seem a bit low, his 1:01.052 was the fastest time among the 13 ‘rookies’ in the eventsomewhat ahead of rookie Christian Lundgaard.
It was not enough to finish ahead of what could be one of his teammates in the structure in 2023 (Felix Rosenqvist), one of his teammates in the test program (Colton Herta), or his current teammate in the figure of the veteran Scott Dixon, in addition to the aforementioned Power. In between the exchange of times, the session was interrupted four times for two red flags, three of them due to incidents on the track, and that consumed more than the 15-minute margin so as not to take time away from the 60 minutes of activity on the track.
In the first instance, the session was stopped after 25 minutes to perform a turn 2 inspection due to the complaint of some pilots due to the irregularity of the terrain, although Race Direction was satisfied with the state of the area. A posteriori, Callum Ilott found the wall of turn 1 when braking too much, losing the entire final half hour and not being able to ride soft; Jimmie Johnson spun at the exit of Turn 8, and Hélio Castroneves hit the wall at the same corner in the final minutes, when he was behind a Scott Dixon who ended up in the run-off by going wide.
RESULTS OF THE FREE 1 OF THE INDY TORONTO
Photos: IndyCar Media