IndyCar Indy Toronto 2025 race results

Pato O’Ward took his second win in two consecutive weekends after Arrow McLaren played a good strategy to put the Mexican in a strong position from the first few laps.

One of the first to pit very early in the race, a Caution brought out by Scott McLaughlin put him ahead of the the top three of Colton Herta, Marcus Armstrong, and Kyle Kirkwood after they pitted under the Caution.

Although Palou stayed out, a decision to elongate his first stint ended hurting the champion elect and allowed Palou to breeze to the win with Rinus VeeKay his only competition.

Although VeeKay had kept O’Ward behind him before the final stops, O’Ward overcut VeeKay and never looked back.

Talking moments after he was out of the car, O’Ward in his typical cheeky style, said he and his car had been blessed to the win by a bird that pooped on his car earlier in the day.

O’Ward joked: “Before Warm Up today, there was a bird that dropped a load on the car and one of my guys, my outside front actually, and I said, that's a living myth.

“[I] can't say I saw this one coming today  but I was feeling so good on the prime tyre all weekend.

“We were just struggling a bit to just get the alternative to work in qualifying and sadly that's the one you need to transfer.

“I knew I had a great car under me to race with and the guys nailed it on the strategy. We just keep making our Sundays a little bit difficult.”

VeeKay brought the car home in second for his best finish and his only podium so far in 2025 followed by Kyffin Simpson who was promoted onto the podium after David Malukas had to pit late in the final quarter of the race.

Colton Herta had begun to hunt down Simpson with laps to go after he pitted from the lead but a late Caution with two laps to go protected the podium for the Chip Ganassi driver and meant the pole sitter finished fourth.

Speaking to FS1, Simpson said: “First of all, all the glory to God, it was a crazy race and so many ups and downs at one point.

“We thought we were in the worst position and then very quickly it turned to one of the best positions.

“At Mid-Ohio I was really bummed because realistically we could have even won that race. To come back here and get it done is incredible.”

Lap-by Lap

Colton Herta led the field from the start with Alex Palou immediately overtaken by Marcus Armstrong in third.

While Herta built a comfortable gap at the front in the first few laps, Kyle Kirkwood was quick to recover from poor Fast Six yesterday and was up to third after lap 2 after he overtook Alex Palou for third.

Making early pit stops off the soft onto hards, Pato O’Ward, Marcus Ericsson, Nolan Siegel, and Scott McLaughlin jumped onto the prime tyre.

However, a loose wheel nut meant McLaughlin’s left rear wheel tyre came loose off the car which sent the Kiwi into the wall and out of the race for the second consecutive race.

A downbeat McLaughlin said: “I'm personally bummed for everyone [at] Chevy and Gallagher. Two races in a row [we’re] out pretty early so sorry to them.

“I felt like something sort of broke or something on the left rear. I love my guys, so I'm not going to drop them in the, oh yeah, the nut came off, but anyway, it's frustrating. We're all in this together.”

Opening the pit window under Caution for the rest of the grid, the top three cars darted for the pitlane while Alex Palou chose to stay out.

The crash for Scott McLaughlin put Pato O’Ward as the leader of the alternate strategy following the Caution.

Leading the field away under green, Palou began to build a big gap of almost two seconds to Rinus VeeKay in second.

Mixing up the grid between the two different strategies, it became quickly clear that those on the soft tyres who stayed out had no grip.

Kyffin Simpson was the first car to begin to quickly lose places while several cars began to follow before Christian Rasmussen brought out a Caution when he smacked the wall after he was elbowed out the way by Will Power.

Rasmussen managed to puncture his right rear tyre and was able to drag the car back to the pits but came back onto track laps behind the grid.

Palou once again led the cars after the track went green and once again developed a large lead over second place David Malukas who overtook Louis Foster moments after the Caution ended.

Meanwhile, further down the grid, the alternate strategy cars continued to make their way back to the top still led by O’Ward.

Armstrong, who had been ahead of Herta and Kirkwood, fell behind the faster Andretti drivers who were playing catch up to get behind O’Ward who was continually putting traffic between him and his competition.

O’Ward seemed to be stuck behind Alexander Rossi until the former IndyCar world champion smacked the wall.

The incident gave Rossi a puncture as his tyre flailed off the rim and meant he had to take to the escape road at Turn 11. This brought out a Caution due to debris on the track.

While Palou’s pit crew appeared in the pit lane, IndyCar officials had closed it during the Caution which stopped the Spaniard from being able to make his first stop.

However, a clever call by Arrow McLaren meant that O’Ward managed to get into pit lane before officials made this decision.

Once reopened, O’Ward was slingshotted up the grid to seventh. However, Palou alongside his teammate, Scott Dixon still chose not to pit making it a Chip Ganassi 1-2.

The big loser from the pitstops was Kyle Kirkwood who was reportedly nudged by Marcus Armstrong when entering the pits which spun his car around and ruled him out of the race win.

Kirkwood managed to stay in touch with his Andretti teammates however and finished in sixth behind Ericsson.

On race restart, Alex Palou managed to build a gap on Dixon before the first turn moments before Jacob Abel got tagged into Turn 1 and hit the wall.

Josef Newgarden was caught unaware and collided with Abel which sent Abel on top of the Penske car.

Newgarden has been involved in several crashes this year including his terrifying moment at Bonmarito where he ended upside down. This is his fifth finish in 25th or lower.

Keeping it very short, Newgarden said: “Just a simple case of wrong place, wrong time wrong place. I just want to say thanks to PPG, Chevy, and all our supporters at home. We see you guys.”

Several cars were blocked by the incident including home hero, Devlin Defrancesco.

Forced to pit, both Palou and Dixon pitted to relinquish the lead positions and came out in 16th and 18th on alternates giving Rinus VeeKay the lead.

This ruined Chip Ganassi’s chance for the win after the duo had to pit once more relatively quickly after their first stop.

Fighting down in the dregs of the field, Palou and Dixon fought their way back to finish 12th and 10th respectively.

“I chose the strategy”, Palou reflected, “There's what we did wrong today.

“I thought it was gonna give us the best option to win, the car was really fast [and] I wanted to be upfront trying to avoid being trapped in traffic.

“We knew it was gonna be a risky strategy compared to starting on alternates. It was kind of working. We were able to open a big gap after that first yellow but it was not enough today.

“Not our day [but] happy that Kiffin got his first podium.”

O’Ward, who began to look in a good position to win, put aggressive moves on the car ahead to get track position. This included Power who he overtook into Turn One.

Power tried to return the overtake but was roughed out of the corner and hit the wall. He managed to get it reversed and back into the race but the damage was done to his race as he returned to the pack in 18th.

O’Ward continued to overtake his way to second passing both Conor Daly and Kyffin Simpson.

He became stuck behind VeeKay before he pitted on lap 58. 

O’Ward didn’t follow him in to pit lane and managed to overcut the Dutch driver by a large margin to take over the provisional lead.

Herta had led again after last pit stops but eventually had to pit himself which dropped him to sixth. Favourite entering today’s race, Herta was one of the many drivers who saw his chances diminished by the several Cautions.

Malukas, who was in third, was forced to pit once more in the final tens of laps which gave Kyffin Simpson third.

The AJ Foyt driver came out 15th and pushed his way back through the grid on much fresher tyres. Finding Lundgaard, Power, and Palou squabbling over position, Malukas squeezed by narrowly avoiding collisions to get back in the top ten and finish ninth.

Although Herta fought hard to get onto the back of Simpson and looked to take the final podium place with two laps to go, a late Caution brought out Felix Rosenqvist and Nolan Siegel protected the position for the Chip Ganassi driver.

Rosenqvist lost the car out of Turn 8 and hit the wall; this left Siegel no time to react and piled into the Swedish driver.