Honda Indy Toronto: Lundgaard takes first win as Palou extends title lead

Lundgaard takes his first IndyCar win as the rest of the field struggles with fuel consumption around Toronto.

It was havoc going into turn 1 as Jack Harvey, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Tom Blomqvist went three wide into turn 1. Harvey would not give enough room to go three wide, which resulted in Blomqvist clattering off the outside wall and into Hunter-Reay which sent him spinning across the circuit collecting Alexander Rossi and spinning Harvey into the outside wall, with Pedersen getting sandwiched between Reay and Blomqvist.

Through all of this though team RLL’s Christian Lundgaard was able to keep the lead of the race through the first couple of corners.

This brought out the safety car for the first time in this race, with the field going back to green flag racing on lap 10.

The leading car of Lundgaard would pit on lap 19 of the race with him switching to the primary tyres after he started on alternates.

Mclaughlin would come into the pitlane on lap 35, with him switching to the alternates, when he came back out, he re-joined between Christian Lundgaard and Pato O’ Ward.

Lap 42 would completely shake up the race though as the wheel would slip out of Romain Grosjean’s hands at turn 10 sending him directly into the outside wall.

This is where the tides would turn as Palou, Herta, and Kirkwood would pit under this caution period.

That put them on the perfect strategy when Helio Castroneves would be spun around by Kirkwood at turn 11 on the restart bringing out the caution.

The two of the cars that would’ve gained from this though were caught out, with Kirkwood being penalized with a stop-n-go penalty, and Palou picking up front wing damage in avoidance of Castroneves.

Lundgaard would pit again under this third caution period dropping him to seventh position.

Mclaughlin and Dixon did the opposite, which seemed to be the wrong call as they would soon find themselves on the wrong strategy with the alternate tyres.

On the restart, Palou would find his way past Herta to put him in the lead of the cars that were on the primary tyres.

On Lap 62 Lundgaard had made his way back to second position and would send it around the outside to have the inside for turn 4 to take the lead of the race with Palou having no answer to the Dans pace.

Going into the final couple laps Newgarden and Ericcson had miss calculated the fuel consumption over the race, which forced them to pit, losing them their fourth and fifth position, which Dixon would inherit.

Lundgaard would take his first Indycar win ahead of Alex Palou and Colton Herta, which would be Team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racings’ first win since the 2020 Indy 500.