By Steve Wittich

The ambient temperature when Friday’s 75-minute practice got underway was 73F. Under the bright sun, the track temperature was a steaming 118.2F.

After a quick install lap, the veteran drivers returned to pit road to wait until later in the session. However, the track wasn’t silent as the rookies, who had an extra set of Primary Firestone Racing Tires (blacks), were busy.

Palou (who has had an ‘interesting’ week – more on that later) is one of seven drivers who has never turned laps on the 1.786-mile, 11-turn Exhibition Place street circuit and was the quickest of the 19 drivers that had turned laps.

Rookies Malukas, DeFrancesco, Lundgaard, Ilott, and Kirkwood had the second, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh best times.

Jimmie Johnson, in the No. 48 Carvana Honda, was out on the Alternate Firestone Racing Tires (reds) early to get a read on the grippier of the tires on a race-length stint.

With 41 minutes remaining, the red flag came out for concern with a patch of the track surface in Turn 2. The AMR INDYCAR Safety Team looked at the patch and pronounced it good (for now).

Felix Rosenqvist had just set the quickest lap when the red to inspect the track came out. Rossi, Power, Pagenaud, and Palou rounded out the top five.

With 30 minutes remaining, Ilott brought out the red flag. The No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet made contact on the driver’s left at the exit of Turn 1 after sliding across the concrete patch.

The car sustained front wing, left front, and left rear suspension damage.

Right before the second red came out, Rahal went quickest, with Rosenqvist, Rossi, Power, Pagenaud, Palou, Dixon, Newgarden, Ericsson, and O’Ward in the top ten.

Only Johnson and Palou had been out on the reds with 20 minutes remaining in practice.

With just under 20 minutes remaining, the third red flag of practice came out. This time it was for Johnson, who oversteered on the bumps on entry in Turn 8, spinning 360 degrees before making contact with the front wing.

The green flag came back out with 15 minutes remaining, with 18 drivers on reds.

Helio Castroneves, who twice – once by merit (2000) and once by points (2014 Race #2) – has started on the pole at the Honda Indy Toronto twice, is clearly getting more comfortable on the road and street courses, going into the top five late in the session.

With ten minutes remaining, Power made light contact with the left rear at the exit of Turn 8, leaving a black mark on the bright white wall.

Turn 8 continued to bite, causing the fourth red flag of the session when Helio Castroneves ended nosed into the tires. He hit the bumpy brake zone wrong, which sent the No. 06 AutoNation/Sirius XM Honda bounding.

Dixon, the car immediately in front of Castroneves, also had an issue in Turn 8, going long into the runoff, but continuing.

The green flag returned with two minutes remaining in the 75-minute session, with most drivers completing one lap “at speed.” However, finding space is not easy with 25 cars on a 1.786-mile, 11-turn Exhibition Place street circuit.

Pagenaud told Dave Burns that it was a good practice but thinks they can still find more with an improvement to the rear end’s stability.

The top ten were within a half-second of leader Rossi.

Honda Indy Toronto practice times

RANK	CAR NO.	DRIVER	TEAM	ENGINE	FAST LAP	DIFF	LAPS
1	27	Alexander Rossi	Andretti Autosport	Honda	1:00.6090	——	23
2	60	Simon Pagenaud	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	1:00.6991	0.0901	24
3	15	Graham Rahal	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	1:00.7031	0.0941	27
4	8	Marcus Ericsson	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	1:00.7262	0.1172	27
5	2	Josef Newgarden	Team Penske	Chevy	1:00.7650	0.1560	29
6	7	Felix Rosenqvist	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevy	1:00.7936	0.1846	23
7	26	Colton Herta	Andretti Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian	Honda	1:00.8689	0.2599	24
8	9	Scott Dixon	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	1:00.9854	0.3764	24
9	12	Will Power	Team Penske	Chevy	1:00.9932	0.3842	28
10	10	Alex Palou	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	1:01.0522	0.4432	33
11	30	Christian Lundgaard	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	1:01.1749	0.5659	31
12	6	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank Racing	Honda	1:01.2454	0.6364	19
13	51	Takuma Sato	Dale Coyne Racing w/RWR	Honda	1:01.2604	0.6514	30
14	18	David Malukas	Dale Coyne Racing with HMD	Honda	1:01.2627	0.6537	25
15	3	Scott McLaughlin	Team Penske	Chevy	1:01.3171	0.7081	31
16	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti Autosport	Honda	1:01.3535	0.7445	30
17	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport	Honda	1:01.5252	0.9162	31
18	45	Jack Harvey	Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing	Honda	1:01.6580	1.0490	32
19	21	Rinus VeeKay	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevy	1:01.6766	1.0676	25
20	5	Pato O’Ward	Arrow McLaren SP	Chevy	1:01.6906	1.0816	26
21	14	Kyle Kirkwood	AJ Foyt Enterprises	Chevy	1:01.8350	1.2260	27
22	20	Conor Daly	Ed Carpenter Racing	Chevy	1:02.1501	1.5411	25
23	77	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger Racing	Chevy	1:02.6874	2.0784	19
24	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chip Ganassi Racing	Honda	1:03.0238	2.4148	37
25	4	Dalton Kellett	AJ Foyt Enterprises	Chevy	1:03.0873	2.4783	29