IndyCar made its yearly trip across the border this weekend, contesting a round on the streets of Toronto, Canada.
Colton Herta had been the man of the weekend leading up to Sunday’s race, leading every practice and qualifying session in his Andretti Global Honda.
Herta continued the dominance throughout the race as well, holding off Kyle Kirkwood for all 85 laps and taking his first victory in over two years.
READ MORE: IndyCar Toronto – Full Race Results
The statement victory gives the 24-year-old a boost of confidence leading into the summer break, although he immediately wished the next race was sooner to build on the momentum.
Following in Herta’s tire tracks all race, Kirkwood crossed the line in second place just 0.347 seconds behind his team-mate.
The two drivers stayed near each other all afternoon, but Kirkwood was never able to meaningfully challenge for the top spot.
Scott Dixon rounded out the podium, moving up from 15th through a combination of perfect pit stop strategy and accident avoidance.
Alex Palou also moved forward a large number of positions, climbing from 18th up to fourth by the checkered flags.
The recovery drive helped the reigning series champion extend his points lead, especially as his nearest competitors found trouble.
That trouble was headlined by a massive crash that brought out the red flag with 13 laps remaining, with a spin by Pato O’Ward in Turn 1 starting a chain reaction that collected six cars.
The most dramatic collision was when Santino Ferrucci came across O’Ward unsighted and launched into the air. His #14 AJ Foyt Racing Chevy bounced off the fencing before landing back on the track upside down.
O’Ward was also hit by Pietro Fittipaldi and Nolan Siegel, with the last contact hard enough to spin both cars around.
Ferrucci climbed out of his car under his own power, after the safety crew flipped his car back over, and his flight makes for the second consecutive race that a Foyt car flew through the air near the end of the event.
Others involved were similarly able to emerge from their cars unhurt, but not necessarily unshaken.
The start of the race was also chaotic, as is usually the case on the tight Toronto course. The field did not make it cleanly through the first couple turns after the green flag waved.
Drivers attempted to get through the tight right handed turn while three wide, which resulted in Santino Ferrucci and Christian Rasmussen in the wall just after taking the green flag.
Ferrucci was able to continue with a front wing change, and remained on track until his more dramatic crash later in the race. Rasmussen suffered broken suspension components and had to retire without completing a single lap.
On the restart on lap four, Agustin Canapino came together with Scott Dixon at Turn 3, which sent the Argentinian into the wall hard and ended his promising day way earlier than he had hoped.
There was even more wrecking late in the race, as all three Team Penske drivers found trouble at the same time.
Will Power attempted to make a move inside of Scott McLaughlin in Turn 5. The #3 entry was sent flying into the concrete barrier and was not able to continue.
McLaughlin made a point to applaud Power derisively after he climbed from the car, and Power was also given a penalty by race control for the incident.
Josef Newgarden did not escape unscathed, as he suffered a cut tire in the stack-up behind the collision. He returned to the track in 10th, not far down on account of the number of retirements, and ended the day in 11th.
In all, only 15 of the 27 cars that started the race were running at the checkered flag, and of those only 12 were on the lead lap.
It is fortunate that there is a long break before the next race, as teams up and down the grid will have a lot of repair work to complete before returning to action.
The next event takes place on the egg-shaped oval of World Wide Technology Raceway on Saturday, August 17.
