The Pato O’Ward of Mexico has always enjoyed sightseeing and sounds of Toronto, this exhibition is just around the Indycar chain race that they did not like, while struggling year -to -the -hand on the road curriculum.
O’Ward finally won Ontario Honda dealers Indie Toronto for the first win of seven -year -old veteran in Canada. One night before Tony Kanan, Principal of the Arrow McLaren team, some concrete strategy, and a little luck won.
“This is a big day. It is a very big day,” O’Ward said in this post-race news conference. “It seems very special in a place that is of course one of the biggest headache every year that we come here.”
The 11-turn, like most drivers in the race of 2.874-kilometer, O’Ward started on a set of low-focused alternative firestone firehoc tires. They locked them in their first pit, which was a lap 3 carefully ahead.
This meant that the O’Ward had to use only two green-flag laps to use a low-fanfast set. Although that strategy forced him into a three-stop race, he was able to run the primary campus in the rest of the way.
“It really looks good that we do not just nail the strategy and are lucky, but we still had to win our victory,” O’Ward said. “It was not given to us. We had a car to be able to do so.”
In 2004, Kanan, the Indycar Series Champion and the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner Kanan, said he was ill with O’Ward and Arrow McLaren struggle in Toronto.
“It has not historically been a good weekend for us, which I did not want to come here,” Kanan said. “I was never that kind of person.
“As a team, we met together last night and I said,” Let’s change it. ” (…) I do not want to believe why we live, but… “
Rinus Veke’s second position in the Netherlands finished second and Kyffin Simpson of the United States finished third. Defending champion Colton Harta, which began in the position of the pole on Sunday, was closing with a handful of laps on Simpson, when a precaution solved the podium.
“Surely the last part, looking forward, is actually trying to close the difference for the Pato, it was really difficult to stop,” VKE said. “I think the track did not actually allow several overtakes.
“The three of us were hovering around the same speed, closing, raising the difference many times. It was not very exciting in the end, but it was a lot of work in the car.”
Although VK felt that there were not a lot of opportunities to overtake the front of the pack, in fact there were many passes in the 90-lap race around Toronto’s Downtown Fairground. 226 were on-track passes (most in the event since 2014) and 201 pass for the situation (most since 2019).
Spain’s Alex Palu, the overall standing leader, finished 12th on Sunday, losing significant base from the O’-ward in the marks list. O’Ward entered Palauu’s weekend by 129 points, but cut 99 points with four races a season.
“We need to ensure that we continue the days as we have today, not only one but some,” O’Ward. “Obviously, we are at a time in the championship, where we are going to get a little more in the conversation to get our elbow out, because I had to do the same to open the doors to give a chance to win this race today.
“This is the only way that we are going to bring him a little sweat too.”
Toronto’s Devin Defranco, the only Canadian on the grid, finished 22nd, completed 57 laps. His day derailed when he had to take a long pit stop to repair his car after taking some damage in an accident in the 37th lap.