Kyle Kirkwood is having a stellar weekend around the tight confines of the 11-turn, 1.786-mile Toronto street circuit at Exhibition Place.

The Andretti Global driver was 12th and second, respectively, in the pair of NTT INDYCAR SERIES practice sessions, then qualified his No. 27 AutoNation Honda in the second spot for Sunday’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto (1 p.m. ET, Peacock, INDYCAR Radio Network).

Kirkwood had company up front with Colton Herta also at the top of the speed charts. Herta paced both practice sessions in his No. 26 Gainbridge Honda and earned NTT P1 Award honors for the third time this season and the 14th time in his career.

“I think this one suits us better than others,” Kirkwood said on why Andretti Global has been so strong at Toronto. “The car suits these tracks.”

Competing on street circuits is often a challenge. Speeding around a bumpy tarmac with concrete walls surrounding the car, a lack of focus or an untimely bump can send a car careening towards danger.

Kirkwood lacks fear on this discipline of tracks. The proof is in the statistics with Kirkwood owning a pair of NTT INDYCAR SERIES victories and each coming last season on street circuits -- in Long Beach and Nashville.

“I enjoy street courses,” he said. “I’m comfortable near walls and comfortable on a track with bumps.”

This season, Kirkwood has an average finish of seventh on street courses, improving his finish three spots each race. He went from 10th in St. Petersburg to seventh in Long Beach. If that trend continues, a win in Sunday’s 85-lap race is on the horizon.

That’s the next step for Kirkwood. Among 17 top-10 finishes in 45 career NTT INDYCAR SERIES starts are just five top-five results and a pair of podiums.

McLaughlin Has 'Fighting Chance' as Others Struggle in Qualifying

Scott McLaughlin has taken an astounding climb in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES points standings over the last nine races, jumping from 29th leaving Long Beach to fifth entering the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto. If all goes well Sunday, he could eat into that deficit more.

McLaughlin qualified his No. 3 Gallagher Team Penske Chevrolet fourth. He is the only driver among the top-five in the points standings to start in the top four rows with three of the top four in points were eliminated in the first round of qualifying.

Championship leader, Alex Palou initially advanced but was penalized his fastest two laps for qualifying interference. He starts 18th.

One of the drivers Palou impeded -- Pato O'Ward -- is third in points O’Ward will start 14th in his No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.

Fourth in points and four-time Toronto winner, Scott Dixon got squirrely on his final lap of qualifying and will start 15th in the No. 9 PNC Bank Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Second in points, Will Power, rolls off ninth in the No. 12 Verizon Business Team Penske Chevrolet.

The question is, how long do they stay there or can he charge through the field?

“Doesn’t help, but we have a fast car,” Palou said.

The two-time and defending series champion was fifth quickest in Saturday morning practice and charged from 22nd to finish sixth at Toronto in 2022 and climbed from 15th to second a year ago.

Dixon has the best average finish on street courses this season at 3.0. He also has six top-six finishes in the last eight starts on the season in general. Dixon and O’Ward have combined to win all three street course events this season.

McLaughlin finished sixth at Toronto last season, fourth, third and fifth, respectively, in three World Wide Technology Raceway starts, won Portland in 2022 and was third-quickest in the Milwaukee test despite never turning a lap there before. The return to Nashville Superspeedway for the Sept. 15 season finale is new to basically everyone.

With four of the remaining six races on ovals and starting 14 spots better Sunday, McLaughlin has a legitimate chance to catch Palou with the Chip Ganassi Racing driver 0-for-23 on ovals.

McElrea Loving Maiden INDYCAR Opportunity

Making his NTT INDYCAR SERIES debut, Hunter McElrea is thriving in the No. 18 Courtesy Corporation Honda for Dale Coyne Racing. The rookie was 16th fastest Saturday morning and qualified 25th for Sunday’s race.

“I love it – I’m just living the dream here,” said McElrea, who finished second in INDY NXT by Firestone points last year. “I worked my butt off to be here for a long time. I didn’t really know if I’d get a shot this year, but (I’m) finally here. Just chipping away at it.

“Trying to stay nice and calm. I feel like we’re learning quite a bit every lap. I’m getting used to INDYCAR. Getting hard to get a clean lap. Guess it’s welcome to INDYCAR.”

Lundgaard On Defending Win

This weekend’s Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto is the first-time Christian Lundgaard returns to an NTT INDYCAR SERIES track as the defending race winner. Having earned his first INDYCAR victory with an almost 12-second margin of victory after leading 54 of 85 laps from his second series pole, Lundgaard is feeling the pressure to deliver another trophy.

“We had a very good weekend last year and it’s something we want to replicate again this year,” he said. “I obviously have very good memories of our win in Toronto but at the same time, we want to get a good result.

“We come in with a lot of pressure because we’re the defending winner of the race. I plan to go in with a good mentality and from having the knowledge that it’s been done before so it should be possible to do again.”

Heading into Round 12 of 17, Lundgaard has 203 points and is ranked 13th. He will start 16th, the sixth time in the last eight races he rolled off from outside the top 10.

Ferrucci Riding Momentum

Santino Ferrucci on the heels of seven top-10 finishes in 11 starts this season jumped from 12th to 10th in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES points standings following the Hy-Vee INDYCAR Race Weekend at Iowa Speedway. The last time an AJ Foyt Racing entry was this high in points in the second half of the season was Takuma Sato also 10th at this very point of the 2013 season.

"It's been a very positive season thus far,” team president Larry Foyt said. “While we haven't had any podiums or victories to solidify the overall feeling, our week-to-week competitiveness on all the different types of circuits INDYCAR offers has been a great step forward for the team.

"Understanding the competitiveness of Indy car racing currently, we still felt Santino and the 14 group could finish the season in the top 10 in the Championship. We have just moved into that spot, so it is still a possibility and one we are striving towards.”

Ferrucci boasts confidence that he can leave Sunday’s race with a top-10 standing in points in-tact.

"I'd think Toronto you're basing off of how good we did in Detroit, which we qualified in the top 10 (10th) and finished inside the top 10 (ninth) as well,” he said. “So, from that perspective, I'm very confident about Toronto.”

Ferrucci said the strong showing in the pair of 250-lap races last weekend at Iowa where he finished sixth and 11th, respectively, gives him the confidence to challenge for a higher spot in points because there’s still four more short oval races remaining before the season is over.

Odds and Ends

• Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing earned four second place finishes in Toronto (Bobby Rahal 1992, 1994, 1995; Michel Jourdain Jr. 2003), and finished third in 1996 (B. Rahal). In total, the team has earned SIX podiums (3rd – Rahal 1996), 11 top-five’s and 22 top-10 finishes at the track. RLL’s best start is NTT P1 Award in 1992 by Bobby Rahal and 2023 by Christian Lundgaard.
• This weekend is the first street course start for David Malukas in nearly a year. Which makes the Firestone Fast Six appearance (he starts sixth) even more surprising. The last time he raced on a street circuit was Aug. 6, 2023 on the streets of Nashville in his former No. 18 Honda for Dale Coyne Racing. Malukas joined Meyer Shank Racing in June and competed at natural road courses WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (June 23) and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (July 7) and the Iowa Speedway (July 13-14) short oval doubleheader.
• Palou for most top-10 finishes this season with nine. All of Palou’s top-10 finishes landed in the top-five while Kirkwood has three top-five finishes.
• Honda swept the top three finishing positions around the 1.786-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). The manufacturer has won nine of the last 10 street races dating back this race in 2022. Honda produced the top three starters Sunday with Herta-Kirkwood and Felix Rosenqvist.
• Michael Andretti has the most Toronto wins with seven (1989, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 2000, 2001).
• Chip Ganassi Racing has the most Toronto wins by a team with eight (1994, 1998, 2009, 2011, 2013 (x2 doubleheader), 2018, 2022. It has produced a podium finisher in the last four Toronto events with Dixon wins in 2018 and 2022, a runner-up in 2019 and Palou finishing second last July.
• The most lead changes in a race in Toronto is nine on July 15, 2018. The fewest caution laps in a Toronto race is three on July 14, 2019. The most cautions laps is 32 on July 10, 2011. The lowest starting position of a Toronto winner was Andretti – he won from 13th – in 2001.
• There have been seven consecutive different runner-up finishers at Toronto: Luca Filippi (2015), Helio Castroneves (2016), Alexander Rossi (2017), Simon Pagenaud (2018), Scott Dixon (2019), Colton Herta (2022), Alex Palou (2023).