IndyCar Indy Toronto 2025 qualifying - results

Colton Herta took his third pole position in the IndyCar Indy Toronto with the only minus one minute lap time of a 00:59:832.

While his teammate was expected to be a threat for the top position, Herta saw no threat from Kyle Kirkwood in Fast Six after a big slide in his out lap ruined his out lap.

Kirkwood then pitted for more fuel but then missed the cut off point to set another time.

While this will frustrate Kirkwood, poor execution by him allowed his teammate to sail to pole position at a track he has proved time and time again that he is quick at.

Out of the car, when asked what it is that he loves about Toronto, Herta reflected: "It's tough to say. We have a great car here,  it's plain and simple.

“You see what me, Kyle, and Marcus are able to do inside the race car. I like to think it's because we're better than everybody else but the cars are really just that good and I think they make us look really good.

“This is a really long one. Physically it's going to be really demanding. It's a tough challenge for us.

“I'm so happy to finally be back here on the pole but I need to get that first race win of the year tomorrow.”

The mood was very different at the end of the paddock with Kirkwood believing that he threw away the pole today.

Frustrated, he said: “We definitely just gave away a pole without a doubt.

“It's happened to me where I just got a huge snap there. It's been under steering and one time I go through there for when it matters for pole and it bottoms and I get a huge snap.

“It just feels like I'm throwing [them] away. Throwing away poles left and right on street courses.

“That one didn't feel very good if I'm being honest. So we'll get back, we'll look at it, figure out exactly what happened. At least someone made up for it with Colton getting the pole there.”

Kirkwood can at least take some optimism in that he wasn’t the slowest Andretti today. Marcus Ericsson had problems even before qualifying started with front brake issues requiring mechanics to open the front of his car and get to work.

Although the Swedish driver was able to get on track thanks to his mechanic's hard work, he wasn’t able to fully repay them after he was eliminated from Round Two.

Undoubtedly this will come as a blow due to the gap between him and his teammates in a year that Ericsson has so far struggled in. Ericsson will start eighth.

Alex Palou will start second for his best start at Toronto which was before today 15th and Marcus Armstrong put his car in third for what he described as a “good day in the office.”

Will Power and Graham Rahal rounded up the Fast Six qualifying fourth and fifth.

In Group One, Louis Foster claimed to have felt that there was “something wrong with the car” diagnosing the problem to the front left of his car.

Despite this, Foster squeezed his way into Round Two and eventually qualified seventh while Scott McLaughlin despite being fourth in practice was eliminated in Group One which he took on the chin as his fault.

He lamented: [The] driver made an error there. I just missed the apex just by a little bit and you see with the concrete here, if you're just off a little bit because it's not rubbing in, you lose a chunk.

“That's on me. Sorry for everyone on the Gallagher Chevy but we'll make most of it tomorrow.”

McLaughlin, who will start 15th, was followed by Felix Rosenqvist who was also eliminated early who danced around that he thought he didn’t put a good lap together.

“I think everyone can find a little more. You never really do a perfect lap”, Rosenqvist said, “I honestly thought I did a decent lap so it's kind of one of those.

“You feel good about your lap, you kind of expect to transfer, you don't. I just have to look at what went wrong.

“I haven't really felt super quick all weekend, but I definitely thought I would transfer. We're not only missing one second, we missed like half a second. I need to dig a little harder for tomorrow.”

Rosenqvist will start 17th.

In Group Two, Marcus Armstrong topped the group followed by Rinus Veekay.

Arrow Mclaren’s Pato O’ward survived by the skin of his teeth putting a lap time only 0.03s faster than Kyffin Simpson who was eliminated.

O’Ward was the only McLaren to progress past the first group stages with Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel seemingly struggling in Toronto and will start 19th and 13th respectively.

However, although O’Ward did his best to scrape through into the Fast Six, he was ultimately eliminated in Round Two. The Mexican driver will start 10th.

O’Ward said: “I'm really happy with the car on primes so I think it'll be looking good for us in the race tomorrow but just these reds or these green tires have really been a difficult thing for us just to switch them on or just to find a way to make them work.

“We're like 7/10 slower in Q2 versus Q1 and I have no real explanation for it.”

Simpson wasn’t the only big elimination however with David Malukas, Josef Newgarden, and Christian Rasmussen not progressing to Round Two.

The elimination will be a disappointment to Newgarden who had a strong weekend with Team Penske in Iowa. Now away from his favourite track, it seems that Penske and Newgarden’s problems have returned. Newgarden qualified 18th.

David Malukas also seemed to be upset with his elimination and blamed traffic trouble with why he couldn’t get a good enough lap time in.

Speaking to Fox Sports, he explained: “We were kind of in-between unfortunately with traffic here it's so hard to kind of judge where we want the tire.

“These tires are very sensitive when it comes to timing. Either time it for lap two or lap three and we couldn’t get it right with traffic.

“We want to push, we can't, so we end up coming in lap two-and-a-half and then at the end of lap three, [the] tire's already falling off and it's a bit of survival the last few corners.

“That's one or two tenths right there [and] that's gonna drop us out so it's unfortunate the way things played out but it's just part of the game here at Toronto.”

The A.J.Foyt driver will start 16th.

Kirkwood was fastest in Round Two but it was Marcus Armstrong who stood out the session after making it through to the Fast Six and pushing out names such as Louis Foster and Scott Dixon.

The Mid-Ohio winner had a troublesome Round Two with a big lock up gnarling up his right tyre before a big clunk with the wall.

Dixon takes a six-place grid penalty after an engine change last weekend and therefore will start 16th with surrounding positions bound to change due to this.

However it was Callum Ilott who was the most annoyed at his Round two elimination.

Ilott dragged his Prema into Round Two and despite his strong performance in a car that hasn’t performed well this year outside of the Indy 500 qualifying, Ilott seemed very frustrated after Round Two when he was eliminated.

He aggrieved: “I didn't get a single lap because muppets keep going off in turn eight, rejoining and blocking you.

“I didn't get a single lap. It's frustrating, you've got guys going at two miles an hour on their out laps, just backing everyone up.

“We did a great job, we have a good car, just when you're two seconds off because every lap you come through and there's a yellow in T8.

“it's P12, it's not too bad but it's just like people block it out, whatever.”

Ilott will start 12th but will be promoted just outside the top 10 to 11th thanks to Dixon’s penalty.