Drivers of the NTT IndyCar Series took to the streets of Toronto on Saturday, setting laps as fast as possible to set the grid for Sunday’s race.
Just as he has done all weekend, Colton Herta put his name on the top of the timesheets with an unbeatable lap in the Firestone Fast 6 round.
Herta blasted past the one minute barrier to set a time of 59.5431 seconds around the short street course, earning his third pole of the season.
READ MORE: IndyCar Toronto – Full Qualifying Results
His Andretti team-mate Kyle Kirkwood gave him a run for his money, but ultimately came up 0.13 seconds short. He will start from the outside of the front row.
Felix Rosenqvist set the third fastest time, with his Meyer Shank Racing Honda improving with each lap he turned and continuing his strong season of results.
Scott McLaughlin was fourth fastest driver, just ahead of Romain Grosjean, who could not quite get under the one minute mark and qualified fifth.
David Malukas was extraordinarily fortunate in the second round, as he went long into a runoff area and caused a local yellow that affected another competitor.
That brought a penalty of the loss of his times to that point, but he was able to set another fast lap afterwards that allowed him to advance into the final round. Malukas will start Sunday’s race from sixth.
McLaughlin was the only Team Penske driver to advance into the Firestone Fast 6, with Josef Newgarden and Will Power both being eliminated in the second round. They earned the seventh and ninth grid positions respectively.
Agustin Canapino set a time that was just 0.0002 seconds slower than his team-mate Grosjean in the first round, but was further off the pace in the second round and earned the 10th starting position.
Scott Dixon was not able to advance out of the first round, with an ill-timed powerslide out of Turn 3 landing him in the 15th starting position.
Pato O’Ward was also bumped out in the first round after being majorly blocked on his fast lap by a group of drivers backing up to create a gap for their own attempts.
Race control investigated the incident and gave Alex Palou a penalty for blocking, which knocked him out of the second round and down to the 18th starting position.
O’Ward was moved forward one row on account of the penalty, but still did not advance and will start Sunday’s race from the seventh row.
Unfortunately for the debutant Hunter McElrea, he was not even able to complete a single lap before driving his #18 Dale Coyne Racing Honda into the tire barriers.
He was able to drive back to pit lane, but he was not allowed to return to the track because he caused a red flag that impacted others on course. McElrea will start from the last row of the grid.
Theo Pourchaire arrived at the track just one hour before qualifying began after travelling from Europe last minute to fill in for Alexander Rossi.
The first laps he ever turned around the Toronto street course was during his qualifying laps, and he ended up completing a lap quicker than Sting Ray Robb on his final lap of the session.
Pourchaire will have a short warm-up session before the race in order to familiarize himself further with the #7 Arrow McLaren Chevy.
The 85-lap race takes place shortly after, with the green flags waving at 1:00 PM eastern time.
