Helio Castroneves was second in 59.9425 while Simon Pagenaud will start third after clocking a time of one minute 0.2293 seconds.
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It’s been 13 years since a Canadian has been atop the podium at the Honda Indy Toronto, and race president Jeff Atkinson thinks it’s about time that cold streak came to an end. Two-time race winners Will Power and Sebastien Bourdais will start fourth and fifth, respectively. “I remember one year where we raced in Baltimore and it was like 90 degrees (F) and the humidity was through the roof”. Dixon also took the pole in the second leg of the 2013 races.
Castroneves had led for much of qualifying, being the first driver to dip into the 59s bracket, and had provisional pole before Dixon’s final lap. “So each lap I’m like ‘Oh, this sucks, we’re not going to be very quick here.’ And then each lap kept on getting better”. But again, we did not want to wait until the end, since the track always got a little bit better, we did not want to wait till the end because of a yellow or red flag coming out and then would have screwed up with our laps because we knew we were only dealing with two laps. “We will see where we stack up and hopefully this will be a breakthrough weekend”. Bourdais commented on the venue after the qualifying session. Carlos Munoz qualified a team-best 15th, Ryan Hunter-Reay was 18th, Alexander Rossi was 19th and Marco Andretti was 22nd – last in the field. And I hate to say we’re overdue, but we’re overdue.
“As a team we have to work on it, because we shouldn’t be here”, said Hunter-Reay.
“For us, we just have to hope for a clean day”.
“I think we’re in a good spot with Ed Carpenter Racing, specifically on the 21 side”, Newgarden said.
Hinchcliffe just squeaked into the second round of qualifications by six hundredths of a second, completing his best lap in 1:00.6291.
The 37-year-old Bourdais is now 14th in the IndyCar Series standings this season. “I was all down and out”, Dixon said.
Defending champion Josef Newgarden was on the inside looking in during the second round, in 1:00.5885.
“I’ve nearly burned that one out of my memory”, he said Thursday. “We’re second in the standings, Fuzzy’s Vodka has been great for us this year. finally got a victory at Iowa last weekend”. That’s what happens when you get to racetracks, you try to solve the puzzle.
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IndyCar on Sunday altered the course so that the wall in Turn 8 was changed to the configuration used in previous years. Concrete patches in Turns 1 and 9 were also worked on to provide more consistent grip.
