Josef Newgarden stunned Scott Dixon to take pole for the Honda Indy Toronto event and stunned the championship leader once again on Sunday when he made a costly mistake that handed victory to the Chip Ganassi Racing Honda team.
Dealing with understeer behind the Team Penske driver during his opening stint on Firestone’s alternate tires, Dixon’s car came to life once primary tires were installed. He’d quickly work his way up to Newgarden’s gearbox before the first caution of the race flew for three drivers chasing the lead duo.
A nose-first crash into the Turn 3 tires by Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay on Lap 28 was compounded by contact a few hundred feet behind him between Penske’s Will Power and his attacking teammate Alexander Rossi. With Rossi appearing to mis-time a pass on Power, he broke the front wing main plane from its mounting plates by hitting the back of Power’s car, and with errant bodywork and a stalled Hunter-Reay to resolve, the field was slowed behind the pace car.
With three front-runners taken out of contention, the Lap 34 restart was filled with more insanity as Newgarden pushed too hard coming out of the final corner and understeered from the lead into the wall as Dixon streaked by. Chaos ensued behind them as Rahal Letterman Lanigan’s Graham Rahal hit Carlin Racing’s Max Chilton under braking for Turn 1, and then Rahal was hit while trying to pull away which left his car and those of Chilton, Power, Rossi, Hunter-Reay, and Dale Coyne Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais stalled or damaged — or both — in the middle of the corner.
Prior to the Lap 34 restart melee, Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ Robert Wickens executed a daring pass down the inside into Turn 1 and captured second place. Excellent driving by Simon Pagenaud and pit work during the final stop by his Penske team leapfrogged the Frenchman to second where he went after Dixon, who was slowed as Hunter-Reay fought to keep from being lapped.
With his five-second lead over Pagenaud cut to under two seconds, Dixon’s path to Victory Lane was eased once the Andretti driver made a late final stop and he cruised home ahead of the Penske man (+5.2701s) and Wickens who starred in front of his home crowd (+6.7753s).
At the finish line, Dixon also collected plenty of spoils for the CGR team with his third win of the year and a big addition to his points lead over Newgarden who placed ninth as the series heads to the New Zealander’s personal playground at Mid-Ohio.
“Can’t thank everybody enough on the team,” he said after nearly doubling his points lead from 33 to 62. “I don’t do it by myself. The team has done a fantastic job. Yes, we got lucky there with Josef making a mistake, but had we had clean air, I think we would have checked out as well. Focus is definitely on the championship right now. Everyone’s working really well and the mood’s changing in the team.”
Pagenaud gave it all he had to lead the Chevy runners home with a helpful podium.
“It was a good race,” he said. “It was really tough. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything for Dixon at the end. I’m super proud of the [my] team and Chevy.”
After nudging Pagenaud from behind under braking into Turn 1 when the Penske driver came out of the pits in second, Wickens and the 2016 series champion raced down to Turn 3 and banged into each other side-by-side a few times before the Canadian conceded the spot.
“We had a good fight, but I was hoping he would leave me more room in Turn 3,” the rookie phenom said. “Podium at my home race. Thank you [Canadian fans] for all the support; you give me goosebumps every morning.”
His SPM teammate James Hinchcliffe was primed for a fifth-place finish until Marco Andretti pitted for a splash of fuel with moments left to run. The miscue, which prevented Andretti from matching his best result of the year, saw his car plummet down to 10th and promote Hinchcliffe, Carlin’s Charlie Kimball, and AJ Foyt Racing’s Tony Kanaan to the final positions inside the top six.
“Thanks to all the fans in Toronto,” Hinchcliffe said. “Super proud of SPM; two guys in the top five. Great future for Canadian motorsports.”
“We just had a really good racecar, something we finally caught up with,” he said after picking up 15 spots in the race. “The Carlin boys did a great job in pit lane; this fifth place was really for them.”Improving from a season’s best of eighth at Detroit, Kimball was delighted to give the rookie Carlin team its first competitive result.
Kanaan, who declared his racecar nothing less than evil last weekend in Iowa, was singing a different tune in Toronto after following Kimball’s note and handing the Foyt team its best finish of 2018.
“I think we’ve been fighting very hard all year long,” he said. “We had great pit stops, some passing, and some crashes there. Great effort by the entire team.”
After Kanaan, Andretti’s Zach Veach made a statement by completing a smooth run to seventh while numerous veterans made mistakes on the tricky street circuit. Embroiled in two incidents on the day, Rossi was the first home in eighth among those who hit others or got hit and pitted for repairs.
Newgarden, who lost track position after clouting the wall, lost more when he stopped to have the No. 1 Chevy looked over by the crew.
RLL’s Takuma Sato had plans on a top-four finish until he performed a carbon copy of Newgarden’s meeting with the wall; a harder hit, though, forced his immediate retirement, and with a top-eight result in sight, Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot was the final driver to hit in the same spot and climbed from the car at the end of the lap.
After the top five, Wickens held onto sixth in the standings, Graham Rahal fell from seventh to eighth, Pagenaud jumped from ninth to seventh, Hinchliffe fell from eighth to ninth, and Andretti took 10th from Bourdais who fell to 11th.Although Newgarden (P9), Rossi (P8), RHR (P16), and Power (P18) had days that were largely forgettable, in the grander scheme, they held onto their positions as second, third, fourth and fifth in the championship behind Dixon. The main change, however, was in the widening of the gap between the leader and those who want to prevent the Kiwi from earning his fifth IndyCar title.
It was a great day for Dixon, another strong effort by the surging Pagenaud, a rewarding outcome for the big Canadian crowd with Wickens and Hinchcliffe up front, a marvelous moment for Carlin Racing, a welcome performance by the Foyt team while its founder recovers from his latest surgery, and an impressive recovery by Rossi and the Andretti team to turn a pair of problems into reduced championship damage.
It’s 12 races down, five to go, and Verizon IndyCar Series fans have plenty to look forward to in the weeks ahead.
