The start of the session was delayed by over 30 minutes as the safety crews and Toronto track workers rebuilt the Turn 3 wall and fence and replaced electrical cables, following a heavy shunt in the supporting Porsche Carrera Cup North America qualifying session.
The first casualty of the session was Josef Newgarden, who felt his Chevrolet go into “engine protection mode” so that he had to cruise back to the pits and was done for the session.
Then defending champion Alex Palou tagged the Turn 1 wall on the inside, which sent the #10 Chip Ganassi Racing across the track and into the wall on the outside, so he damaged the front and rear suspension on the left side as well.
Toronto IndyCar debutant David Malukas went to the top of the times with a 1m00.6834s for Dale Coyne Racing with HMD, just ahead of circuit star and defending race winner Simon Pagenaud of Meyer Shank Racing.
Romain Grosjean, another newcomer to the track, slotted his Andretti Autosport into third, as team-mate Colton Herta reached top spot with an initial 1m00.4871s lap, but Grosjean ran long at Turn 1, and while he got back on track, exiting the final turn the rear of his car stepped out and hit the wall hard with its right-rear. Out came the red flag for a second time, as Grosjean limped his crippled car back to the pits.
Romain Grosjean, Andretti Autosport Hondalin DeFrancesco, Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport Honda=
Photo by: Perry Nelson / Motorsport Images
As the session resumed, Graham Rahal, who excelled yesterday in first practice too, jumped to third in the #15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan, and Felix Rosenqvist became top Chevrolet runner with fourth fastest time for Arrow McLaren SP.
Rahal then improved again, to draw 0.045s of Herta’s top time, before six-time champion and three-time Toronto winner Scott Dixon slotted into that gap to claim second for Chip Ganassi Racing. Dixon then chipped more hundredths off his best time next time by to move to top spot with a 1m00.4547s.
With seven minutes to go, Scott McLaughlin, another Toronto newcomer, produced a 1m00.3389s on his 26th lap of the session to jump to top spot, only for Ericsson to eclipse the Penske driver shortly afterwards by 0.1307s to jump to the top.
Three-time Toronto winner Will Power delivered a lap good enough for second before being pushed to third as Herta laid the final timesheet-topping lap of the session of 1m00.0471s – the first 107mph lap of the weekend.
With just a minute remaining, Takuma Sato struck the wall hard in Turn 6 and had to stop, which effectively ended the session early.
Rookie Christian Lundgaard underlined his progress with a late improvement to fifth, just ahead of Dixon and Rahal.
Malukas’ best effort kept him eighth ahead of Rosenqvist, as yesterday’s pacesetter Rossi rounded out the top 10, but he was held up on his fastest run by a car pulling out of the pits and holding him up exiting Turn 2.
Toronto IndyCar qualifying starts at 2.00pm local time (7pm BST).
IndyCar Toronto – FP2 results