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TORONTO — With his boss, Zak Brown, in his pit area, Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward gave his team something massive to celebrate by winning Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto.
It was O’Ward’s second victory in as many weekends and his second win in the last three NTT IndyCar Series races. He won the Synk 275 at Iowa Speedway on July 12.
It was also O’Ward’s ninth career IndyCar win.
The race ended under caution as one of O’Ward’s Arrow McLaren teammates, Nolan Siegel and Felix Rosenqvist crashed in Turn 10 with two laps to go.
O’Ward’s Chevrolet won the race under caution followed by Rinus VeeKay’s Honda for Dale Coyne Racing and Kyffin Simpson’s No. 8 Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing.
O’Ward’s crew used a brilliant pit-stop strategy at the start of the race when he pitted just before a caution after just three laps to switch from the softer Firestone Greens to the preferred Firestone Blacks.
That allowed him to find the winning path to victory lane.
From there, he could race hard and have the best tires on the car for the end for the end of the race.
“I can’t say I saw this one coming today, but I was feeling so good on the prime tire all weekend,” O’Ward said. “The guys nailed it on the strategy.
“Before warmup today, there was a bird that dropped a load on one of my guys. I told them, that means we are doing to win today.”
O’Ward called the Toronto course his most challenging track. He met the challenge in winning style.
Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing finished 12th, allowing O’Ward to trim his 129-point lead entering the race to 99 points heading to next weekend’s event at California’s WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
“I chose the strategy, so there is where we went wrong,” Palou said. “I thought it would give us the best strategy to run up front, but it happens. I was kind of working, I opened a big gap after that first yellow, but it didn’t work out at the end.”
Palou led the most laps in the race, 37 out of the 90 laps that made up the distance.
VeeKay’s second-place finish was a win for Dale Coyne Racing.
“It was a good day, a very good day,” VeeKay said. “We’ve been having a very good season, but this is one of many more podiums coming.”
CGR driver Kyffin Simpson went from 13th to third for his first podium finish of his career.
“Just incredible,” said the driver from the Cayman Islands. “At Mid-Ohio, I could have won that race but didn’t get it done.
“Today was a great race that made up for that.”
At the start, Marcus Armstrong raced into second place as polesitter Herta drove away from the field. Palou dropped from second to fourth and Kirkwood started to race his way toward the lead.
On Lap 3, several drivers hit pit road to get off the softer Firestone Green alternate tires and put on the preferring Blacks. Those included Pato O’Ward, Marcus Ericsson, and Nolan Siegel.
Shortly after that, Scott McLaughlin continued the Team Penske misery when the left-rear wheel nut flew off the wheel and McLaughlin’s No. 3 Chevrolet slammed into the backstretch wall.
The caution light was on, pit road opened and more of the contending group pitted including the race leader. That put Palou in front.
The green flag waved to restart the race on Lap 8 with Palou leading Rinus VeeKay and Louis Foster.
VeeKay began to lose the grip on his softer tires and dropped to seventh, moving Foster up to second, David Malukas to third and Scott Dixon to fourth.
On Lap 15, Christian Rasmussen was knocked into the wall by Team Penske’s Will Power. Rasmussen’s right rear went flat from the impact, but the driver from Denmark was able to spin it around and drive back to the pits during the caution period.
It was back to racing on Lap 18 with Palou leading Foster, Malukas and Dixon.
Palou led Malukas by 2.5 seconds on Lap 22. It was 3.393 seconds on Lap 25.
Alexander Rossi was running seventh when he crashed near Turn 11 and had to drive down through the runoff at the end of the front straight. The race course was littered with debris.
Palou was the leader ahead of Malukas, Foster, Dixon, Christian Lundgaard, Newgarden and Ericsson. Herta was ninth and Kirkwood 10th.
The pits opened on Lap 35 and Palou and Dixon both stayed out. Kirkwood spun on the entrance to pit lane trying to get into his pit box after he was tagged by Armstrong. He would later get an avoidable contact penalty.
Malukas was first off pit road followed by Foster.
As the field headed to the green flag on Lap 37, Palou was in front of Dixon followed by VeeKay, Simpson and Conor Daly.
But the full field didn’t make it through Turn 1 as rookie Jacob Abel was punted and hit the Turn 1 wall. The rear of Abel’s car lifted off the ground and landed on the back of Newgarden’s No. 2 Chevrolet.
Devlin DeFrancesco and Foster were also involved but were able to return to the track.
Newgarden was out of his car after the latest in a long line of frustrations this season.
Finally, Palou and Dixon both pitted on Lap 42. Both Chip Ganassi Racing drivers put on the softer Green tires.
VeeKay was the leader when the green flag waved onlap 43 with Simpson second and Daly third. Power was in fourth, but O’Ward blew past Power into Turn 1.
O’Ward and Power went two wide and pushed Power’s No. 12 Chevrolet into the wall. Power was able to back up and continue without a caution period and return to the race but lost key positions.
O’Ward passed Simpson for second and set his sights on VeeKay, the race leader.
At the halfway point, VeeKay led O’Ward by 0.7188 seconds.
On Lap 50, VeeKay’s lead was 0.7314 seconds.
While VeeKay and O’Ward ran up front on the harder tires, Palou and Dixon were running 12th and 13th, respectively, on the softer alternate tires.
Palou pitted on Lap 55 for what he hoped was his final stop, putting on the Blacks.
Dixon pitted for the Blacks one lap later.
VeeKay and Dale Coyne Racing masterfully raced to Lap 57 before pitting for the final time for Black tires. That gave the lead to O’Ward as VeeKay returned to the track in seventh place.
O’Ward pitted one lap later and was out of the pits before VeeKay came through turn 11 in a key battle for position and essentially in charge of the race.
On Lap 60, Herta was scored as the race leader, but would have to make another pit stop. He led O’Ward by 12.1460 seconds. VeeKay was third, 0.4702 seconds behind O’Ward.
When Herta pitted for four tires and fuel on Lap 62, O’Ward was the leader by 1.596 over VeeKay.
Palou was 15th, 25 seconds back with 23 laps to go.
With 20 laps to go, O’Ward led by 2.458 seconds. Malukas was up to third with Simpson fourth and Herta fifth.
On Lap 75, O’Ward’s lead was up to 2.9938 seconds, and the race appeared to be in his hands.
