Before the NTT INDYCAR SERIES pushes the pause button for the Summer Olympics break, one more race in this busy summer stretch commences Sunday on the streets of Toronto.
The annual 85-lap street fight north of the border has served as a Honda playground, and it comes at a good time in the schedule for the manufacturer and its teams. Chevrolet will arrive fresh off a highly successful Hy-Vee INDYCAR Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway, where it accumulated five of six possible podium finishing positions across the two 250-lap races.
Last year in Toronto, Honda swept the top three finishing positions around the 1.75-mile street circuit at Exhibition Place and has done the same in the last two street races of the 2024 season (at Long Beach and Detroit).
Can Chevrolet power its way to a rejuvenation at the tight, 11-turn course that offers great views of the Toronto skyline? Find out for Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto at 1 p.m. ET on Peacock and the INDYCAR Radio Network. This is the final street race of the season.
Everyone is chasing points leader Alex Palou, who hasn’t qualified well in past Toronto races but has charged through the field seemingly with ease. Palou started 22nd in 2022 and 15th a year ago but finished sixth and second, respectively.
Last year, Palou nursed his damaged No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda home to a podium finish despite a broken front nose cone. The two-time and defending series champion crossed the finish line behind Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Christian Lundgaard, who earned his maiden NTT INDYCAR SERIES victory.
Lundgaard hasn’t finished where he would have liked on street circuits in this season – he was 18th in St. Petersburg, 23rd in Long Beach and 11th at Detroit. But in two Toronto starts, he has finished eighth and first.
Like Lundgaard, Andretti Global driver Kyle Kirkwood won his first career race on a street circuit. Last season, he won in Long Beach and then again in Nashville. Statistically, there is good reason to see Kirkwood driving his No. 27 AutoNation Honda to victory lane Sunday. With each street race this season, he has gained three positions. He finished 10th in St. Petersburg, seventh in Long Beach and fourth in Detroit.
Team Penske driver Will Power enters the Toronto weekend second in points, 35 behind Palou, after winning Sunday’s Hy-Vee One Step 250 Presented by Gatorade. But he hopes for a better result than he has had in recent Canadian races – his average finish in the past five starts in this event is 17.2. Still, he has won here twice and has three top-six finishes in this season’s three street course events.
Power teammate Scott McLaughlin has the opposite going for him. Boasting a 24.3 average finish on street circuits this season, he finished ninth as a Toronto rookie in 2022 and was sixth last year despite leading 28 laps from the front row. He has a third-place finish in three of the last five races and a win in the other (Saturday’s Hy-Vee Homefront 250 presented by Instacart).
It also could be a Scott Dixon weekend. The starting spot of the Chip Ganassi Racing driver has improved with each street circuit races this season: From 11th in St. Petersburg to eighth in Long Beach to fifth in Detroit. The six-time series champion has won two of those three races -- Long Beach and Detroit -- and was seventh in the other. In Toronto, Dixon has four wins and nine top-three finishes in 15 starts. His last four finishes were first, second, first and fourth. He finished fourth in both races at Iowa Speedway last weekend, trimming 14 points off of his deficit to Palou in the standings.
The first practice in Toronto is 3 p.m. ET Friday. The series returns at 10:30 a.m ET Saturday for the second practice session in advance of the three-round knockout NTT P1 Award qualifying session scheduled to begin at 2:45 p.m. ET.
Sunday’s schedule features the pre-race warmup at 10 a.m. ET before the 85-lap race at 1 p.m. ET. All the action will air live on Peacock and the INDYCAR Radio Network.