{"id":36104,"date":"2025-07-20T02:04:45","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T06:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=36104"},"modified":"2025-07-20T02:05:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T06:05:42","slug":"colton-herta-starts-from-pole-in-toronto-for-the-second-year-in-a-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/07\/20\/colton-herta-starts-from-pole-in-toronto-for-the-second-year-in-a-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Colton Herta Starts From Pole in Toronto for the Second Year in a Row"},"content":{"rendered":"

The action continued in Toronto on Saturday afternoon for IndyCar qualifying, and a familiar face ended up in pole.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Colton Herta Will Lead The Field To Green At Honda Indy Toronto<\/b><\/h2>\n

During Practice 2, Colton Herta<\/a> finished at the top of the leaderboard with a time of 1 minute <\/span>0.0578 seconds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Colton Herta – Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto – By: Joe Skibinski, Penske Entertainment, 7\/19\/2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Herta\u2019s Andretti teammate, Kyle Kirkwood,<\/a> was expected to be at the top given the previously recorded practice results. Kirkwood had a strong set of laps during the beginning stages of qualifying. He advanced to the Firestone Fast Six, where unfortunately, he was unable to record a proper lap time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kirkwood was sent out late to save a set of tires for Sunday\u2019s race. At one point, Kirkwood locked up and had to regain control of his car to complete his lap quickly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This will be Herta\u2019s third time starting on pole in the last four years. He earned pole position in 2022, 2024, and 2025. Last year, Herta led all sessions and won the 2024 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto<\/a> from pole.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Armstrong Rounds out the top three:<\/b><\/h3>\n

Coming in third place was Meyer Shank Racing\u2019s own Marcus Armstrong. Armstrong finished fourth in Practice 1 while his teammate, Felix Rosenqvist, came in 11th. During Practice 2, he finished 13th.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Armstrong set a lap time of 1 minute 0.3535. He matches his own best finish, which was achieved just last weekend during the double-header in Iowa.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is Armstrong\u2019s first year racing with Meyer Shank, and while the season got off to a slow start, he\u2019s shown progress and consistency in the past few races.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meyer Shank\u2019s performance in Toronto has been up and down, but the 66 car has been promising with David Malukas taking it to a P6 finish during last year\u2019s race.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0Four Takeaways From The Honda Indy Toronto Practices<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Alex Palou Continues to Fight at the top:<\/b><\/h3>\n

Even though Palou won\u2019t be starting from first on the grid, he still managed to snag a place on the front row. He\u2019ll be starting from P2 tomorrow afternoon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite all the success he\u2019s had in past seasons and in 2025, where he continues to dominate, Palau hasn\u2019t had the best of luck in Toronto. This year marks the first time the Chip Ganassi Racing<\/a> driver has made it to the Fast Six in Toronto.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the key components to avoiding getting caught in a wreck in Toronto is to start closer to the front of the grid, which works in Palou\u2019s favour.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After Qualifying, Palou put emphasis on tire strategy, saying he believes that tomorrow the race will have to focus more on tire management instead of fuel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked to share some of his thoughts on the differences between Friday\u2019s practice and Saturday\u2019s practice session and qualifying, he said his main focus was finding more confidence in the car.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not super hard to get a fast car for one lap, but I think to be comfortable and to be able to be consistent, especially from turn eight to turn 11 over those bumps, is important,\u201d said Palou.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, drivers Will Power, Graham Rahal finished in fourth and fifth, respectively.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto<\/a> starts on Sunday at noon EST and will be streamed on FOX. As always, LWOS will share details regarding the race.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo:\u00a0<\/strong>Joe Skibinski, Penske Entertainment<\/p>\n

Recording Date: 7\/19\/2025<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The action continued in Toronto on Saturday afternoon for IndyCar qualifying, and a familiar face ended up in pole.\u00a0 Colton Herta Will Lead The Field To Green At Honda Indy Toronto During Practice 2, Colton Herta finished at the top of the leaderboard with a time of 1 minute 0.0578 seconds.\u00a0 Herta\u2019s Andretti teammate, Kyle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5230,"featured_media":36109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1663],"tags":[1600,2108,1154,1657,1868,118],"class_list":["post-36104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indycar","category-ntt-indycar-series","tag-alex-palou","tag-andretti-global","tag-colton-herta","tag-kyle-kirkwood","tag-marcus-armstrong","tag-qualifying"],"modified_by":"Hayden Murdock","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36104"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36113,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36104\/revisions\/36113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}