'F***ing joke' - Toronto qualifying a mess for IndyCar title rivals

Four of the top five in the IndyCar Series championship didn’t make the Fast Six pole shootout in Toronto qualifying - with one of the contenders labelling the session a “f**king joke”.

Amid all that, Theo Pourchaire also made a return to the McLaren team that sacked him earlier this year.

The first driver outside of the top six in the championship, Colton Herta, bagged his third pole of the season and his 14th in his sixth year at this level, after topping every session this weekend ahead of a stunning qualifying for the Andretti Global team, which has Kyle Kirkwood in second too.

Championship leader Alex Palou was penalised for blocking championship rival Pato O'Ward, while Scott Dixon made it a trio of top contenders not making it out of IndyCar's version of Q1.

What happened to the title favourites?

Scott McLaughlin qualified fourth - after a brilliant Iowa weekend with a win and a third catapulted him into the championship picture, while Will Power pulled off an amazing save during the session but had to settle for ninth.

But the Penske pair were the only two from the top six in the championship to escape the first parts of qualifying.

Points entering this race

1 Alex Palou 336
2 Will Power -35
3 Pato O’Ward -52
4 Scott Dixon -57
5 Scott McLaughlin -66

O’Ward, currently third in the championship, was seemingly the most furious of the title contenders as points leader Palou ruined his group qualifying lap. That led to O'Ward starting 14th. He spurned a TV interview and tweeted “absolute fkn joke”, having presumably wanted to get the chance to contest the Fast 12 after being baulked.

Palou was penalised and lost his two fastest laps, dropping to 18th when he would have started in the top 12, but O’Ward wasn’t high enough up the order to benefit from Palou’s penalties. Instead, Agustin Canapino took Palou’s place for his best ever IndyCar start in 10th.

Palou wasn’t sure what he could have done to avoid delaying O’Ward, as he was overtaking Ganassi team-mate Kyffin Simpson when O’Ward arrived on a hot lap. He did rebound to finish second from 15th in this race last year though, in a memorable race where his front wing was flapping for most of the final stint.

Where the championship contenders start

4 Scott McLaughlin
9 Will Power
14 Pato O’Ward
15 Scott Dixon
18 Alex Palou

Magic Malukas part of Andretti charge

David Malukas made the Fast Six pole shootout for the second race in a row, despite still covering from a pre-race wrist injury that eventually cost him his Mclaren seat before even racing for the team.

Since joining Meyer Shank for Laguna Seca last month, Malukas has qualified well on road and street courses and impressed given he was only medically cleared to race again in June. He will start the Toronto race sixth just behind Romain Grosjean, who was amazing in opening qualifying despite being baulked by traffic.

Grosjean’s ex-team Andretti has a technical tie-up with Meyer Shank, and Felix Roseqnvoist qualified third to make it an Andretti-affiliated 1-2-3 behind Herta and Kirkwood, with both Shank cars in the Fast Six shootout.

With Herta having three poles this year, at Detroit and Iowa and now here, and Kirkwood up there also, this is another great chance for Andretti to get its first win of the year.

Slimming down to three cars for 2024 has helped it become more consistent in the races and a return to its supreme street course form has helped, but it is still to reach the top step of the podium and all the drivers ahead of Herta and Kirkwood in the championship have at least one victory.

Marcus Ericsson starts 11th for the team having made the Fast 12 segment, ahead of impressive reigning Indy NXT champion Christian Rasmussen at Ed Carpenter Racing, who has outshone his team-mate Rinus VeeKay on occasion this year.

Shock Pourchaire call-up

Pourchaire was the story of the day after leaving his native Nice at midnight and arriving in Toronto not more than an hour before qualifying to replace Alexander Rossi at McLaren.

Rossi broke his thumb in a Turn 8 practice crash on Friday, leading to McLaren calling up Pourchaire - who it signed to race the rest of the season from May onwards but then weeks later dropped in favour of rookie Nolan Siegel. Pourchaire’s return has teed up a surprise back-to-back comparison of the pair over the Toronto weekend.

Despite an inevitable jet lag and not having driven the Toronto course before, plus this being his first time with the hybrid unit and a new steering wheel because of that, Pourchaire was 26th.

He was 1.5s off the fastest driver in his group, despite spending the whole session on soft tyres, while his rivals switched from hards to have fresh softs at the end of the session when the track was grippiest.

Coyne’s revolving door

Hunter McElrea, the 2023 Indy NXT runner-up, crashed at Turn 8 during his first ever IndyCar qualifying session, and starts 25th for the Dale Coyne team as it makes its latest driver switch.

Toby Sowery is in the other Dale Coyne car for his second IndyCar start and did well in 21st.