For the second consecutive NTT INDYCAR SERIES race, an AJ Foyt Racing entry was launched airborne following contact with an Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
On Lap 73 of the 85-lap Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto, Santino Ferrucci (pictured above earlier in the race) went over the top of Pato O’Ward’s No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet.
O’Ward had spun entering Turn 1 and backed into the concrete wall. He said the brakes on his car locked, which caused the spin.
While his wrecked race car sat helplessly at corner exit, Marcus Ericsson had nowhere to go and hit the wall next to O’Ward in efforts to avoid him. The trailing car of Pietro Fittipaldi couldn’t slow to avoid O’Ward and ran over the front of O’Ward’s car in his No. 30 HUB International Honda.
Directly behind Fittipaldi and following in his tire tracks was Ferrucci, who also had nowhere to go and ran over O’Ward’s front nose cone. That got the No. 14 AJ FOYT RACING/SEXTON PROPERTIES Chevrolet airborne.
Nolan Siegel and his No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet hit his Arrow McLaren teammate, too.
Luckily, all drivers climbed out of their cars and were not injured.
“First off very, very thankful to the (AMR) Medical Team,” Ferrucci said. “The cars are so safe and to have a scary accident like that just to walk away fine.”
Ferrucci said he didn’t know O’Ward was sitting there and couldn’t do anything to avoid contact. He was along for the ride at that point and thankful it wasn’t worse.
Last Sunday at Iowa Speedway, AJ Foyt Racing’s Sting Ray Robb ran over the rear of the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet of Alexander Rossi after Rossi’s car was slowing due to running out of fuel. Robb’s No. 41 Goodheart Vet/Pray.com Chevrolet launched into the air before tumbling down the backstretch in the Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade.
Robb raced Sunday, finishing 25th after retiring on Lap 13 with a mechanical failure.
Team Penske’s Troubles Are Palou’s Gain
Lap 77 of 85 for Sunday’s race in Toronto could be a primary reason why a Team Penske driver isn’t hoisting the Astor Challenge Cup championship trophy this fall.
On that restart, the team had Scott McLaughlin and Will Power racing in the top five with Josef Newgarden eighth. Points leader Alex Palou was seventh.
Newgarden ran over debris in his No. 2 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet and had to slow on track with a cut tire.
Power made a move on McLaughlin but the two made contact, shipping McLaughlin’s No. 3 Gallagher Team Penske Chevrolet into the Turn 5 wall.
McLaughlin, who elected to race off strategy all day as the only driver in the top 12 of the starting lineup to start on the Firestone alternate tires, then use a fresh set of the them for the final stint, rode mostly in fourth place. He left frustrated to be taken out by a teammate.
“It’s a low-percentage move when probably we’re both going to have a pretty good day,” McLaughlin said. “He’s coming from a long way back and it’s just hard to stop. Do you do that to a teammate? I don’t know.
“We had contact with Laguna Seca and I get that we’re racing for a championship but when we’re both ahead of Palou, it’s just a low percentage move. It’s a little disappointing. I thought we could actually have some really good points today and put ourselves in the championship fight but now we made it a little bit harder.”
Power was penalized for that maneuver and dropped to 12th at the finish. Newgarden crossed the finish line 11th.
With two spots handed to him, Palou passed one more car on the ensuing restart to finish fourth. The gain of 14 spots in the race allowed Palou to extend his points lead over Power from 35 entering the weekend to 49.
“We were just there waiting for somebody else to make those mistakes,” Palou said. “I did it last week in Iowa and was not going to here today.”
Palou knew Saturday in qualifying he had a fast car but losing his top two qualifying laps for interference in the opening round relegated him to an 18th-place start.
“Super easy drive,” he said. It was a shame that we had to start from 18th, but the car was amazing.”
McLaughlin lost 18 points entering the weekend 65 behind Palou in fifth and leaves 83 arrears in eighth. Newgarden dropped from trailing by 132 points to now 145.
Dr. Vaizer Awarded
NTT INDYCAR SERIES medical director Dr. Julia Vaizer received a Shero award from the WIMNA (Women in Motorsports North America Group) Saturday in Toronto.
The group hands out many of those awards throughout the year and will hand out a national award at the PRI Summit this December in Indianapolis.
Vaizer was nominated by Dr. Tegan Turner, who is an emergency medicine resident in Canada that Dr. Vaizer has been mentoring for a few years.
Dr. Turner has hopes to be a motorsports medicine physician in her future.
Odds and Ends
· Scott Dixon averaged a third-place finish on street circuits this season and finished there in Sunday’s race. The podium finish was the 141st of his storied career, tying him with Mario Andretti for most all-time.
· Chip Ganassi called his team’s qualifying performance “embarrassing” with all five of his cars being eliminated in the first round of qualifying. The frown turned upside down with Ganassi taking three of the top five finishing positions between Dixon in third, Palou fourth and Marcus Armstong in fifth.
· O’Ward’s 17th-place finish snaps a string of seven consecutive top-10 finishes on the season and also ends a streak of seeing the checkered flag for 21 consecutive races. The last DNF entering the weekend was a crash in the 2023 Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.
· Honda took finishing spots 1 through 7 and produced eight of the top-10 finishers in the 85-lap race. The pair of Chevrolet drivers to finish in the top-10 were Ed Carpenter Racing’s Rinus VeeKay in eighth who scored his third consecutive top-10 finish in the No. 21 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet and Romain Grosjean (No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet) who was scored in ninth.
· In a span of less than 48 hours, rookie driver Theo Pourchaire was at home in France on Friday, then delivered a top-15 finish in the No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet Sunday in Canada. Without any practice or ever seeing the 1.786-mile Toronto street circuit before, Pourchaire finished 14th in a substation role for injured Alexander Rossi who broke his thumb in a practice crash Friday afternoon.