Lundgaard on Toronto pole after wet/dry IndyCar qualifying thriller

Christian Lundgaard took his second IndyCar pole of the season for Rahal Letterman Lanigan with dry tyres on a still-wet Toronto street track, winning the pole by over three-tenths with a stunning lap.

Days shy of his 22nd birthday the Dane has been one of IndyCar’s most impressive drivers this year given how much his team has struggled – especially on street courses – which is where he takes a pole today.

The big shock in the session came in IndyCar’s equivalent of Q1 when, in the first group, a number of teams were caught out by a rain shower including runaway championship leader Alex Palou.

On a run of three wins and having qualified no worse than eighth this year so far, he’ll start 15th for Chip Ganassi Racing.

“It’s a shame we’re going to have to start from the back but we know we have a fast car and we can make it from there,” Palou told Peacock TV.

It’s a year on from Palou announcing he was joining Arrow McLaren which would kick off litigation between Palou and Ganassi, but after a crash in practice and an engine issue in qualifying he went from 22nd to sixth last year, so it’s too soon to rule him out for any result just yet from 15th.

Alex Palou is KNOCKED OUT in Round 1 of qualifying! 😮

📺 : @peacock pic.twitter.com/UKOB8hYX0c

— INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) July 15, 2023

After that first session patches of standing water made sure the second group was plenty wet, with Colton Herta the highest profile absentee from making it through.

Last year’s polesitter at Toronto, Herta – who won the last wet IndyCar race at Indianapolis last year, and has been on pole for the last two IndyCar races in a row – was one of the first to catch the chequered flag and a host of drivers behind him improved and pushed him out.

Andretti was 1-2 in both practice sessions but none of its cars made the fight for pole with Kyle Kirkwood in eighth and Romain Grosjean ninth on the grid.

O’Ward went into the Fast Six as the favourite for pole after a masterful decision to take a fresh set of wets late in Q2, a decision which boosted him to the top of the charts and through to the next session.

O’Ward was the first to go out on dry soft tyres in the Fast Six and repeatedly beat his own benchmark, until later drivers continued to improve late on.

Lundgaard had looked impressive at times during practice, and at the place where his and RLL’s season began to turn around last year, Lundgaard delivered a stunning lap on dry tyres with the final sector still incredibly slippery where it has been repaved since last season.

He was 0.3223s quickest in the end, ahead of Scott McLaughlin, who spun at the final turn with just over two minutes to go and then impeded Marcus Ericsson, but was able to set another lap good enough for second.

O’Ward ended up third, with Marcus Ericsson adding to Ganassi’s brilliant qualifying form in 2023 by taking fourth.

Felix Rosenqvist recovered from a crash in Saturday morning practice to qualify an excellent fifth in a hastily prepared back-up car.

Will Power made it into the Fast Six for the first time this year despite being IndyCar’s highest-ever pole scorer. He took sixth on the grid.

Scott Dixon continued his strong qualifying form for the season in seventh although just missed out on the fight for pole in Q2, lamenting the decision not to stop for new tyres for his Ganassi-run car.

Behind Kirkwood and Grosjean, rookie Marcus Armstrong rounded out the top 10 for Ganassi in a big improvement from his practice form, with Josef Newgarden and Rinus VeeKay completing the drivers in the top 12 who made it to Q2.

After improving by over 1.5 seconds between the first and second practice, IndyCar debutant Tom Blomqvist gave another strong showing of himself and will start 20th in a 27-car field.

Having only driven the Meyer Shank car almost a year ago, and finding out on Tuesday he would be racing this weekend, the addition of rain to what is already one of the toughest circuits on the calendar to learn meant an uphill struggle.

He repeatedly put himself in the top six in the wet session but appearing to run wide at Turn 3 and clouting the barriers at the last turn didn’t help, eventually 1.9961s off the best time and 1.1789s off advancing among the late improvements in his session.

Qualifying Results