Honda Indy Toronto Practice 3 results || Combined results
TORONTO -- Helio Castroneves scored an Indy Lights victory on the Exhibition Place circuit in 1997. By his count, he's overdue for another.
Castroneves, driving the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet, was quickest in the 45-minute practice session preceding the three rounds of knockout qualifications for the Honda Indy Toronto with a lap of 59.6424 seconds on the 1.755-mile, 11-turn street course.
Teammate and Verizon IndyCar Series championship points leader Juan Pablo Montoya was second (59.8320) in the No. 2 PPG Automotive Refinish Team Penske Chevrolet. Josef Newgarden checked in third quick for the second consecutive day in the No. 67 Hartman Oil CFH Racing Chevrolet and Will Power was fourth in the No. 1 Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet. Tony Kanaan, driving the No. 10 NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, was fifth.
Gil de Ferran holds the track one-lap qualifying record of 57.143 seconds set in 1999. In that race, Dario Franchitti won from the second starting position, de Ferran crashed and finished 19th and Montoya started eighth and placed 22nd.
Castroneves has finished second in two of the past three races at Toronto, and has three other top-10 finishes in 12 total starts. But Victory Circle has eluded the three-time Indianapolis 500 winner.
Watch qualifying at 2:30 p.m. (ET) on Racecontrol.indycar.com, augmented by real-time Timing & Scoring and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network broadcast. Also, NBCSN will telecast qualifying at 5 p.m. (ET). NBCSN will telecast the race at 3 p.m. (ET) June 14.
Push to pass off the screen
INDYCAR announced that it will no longer display Verizon IndyCar Series entrants’ push-to-pass counts and usage via indicators in its Timing & Scoring software. Teams have been able to monitor all competitors’ push-to-pass count and when they are activated.
Each entry will receive 10 activations for 20 seconds each for the 85-lap Honda Indy Toronto.
“Unfortunately, the information given to the teams on the push-to-pass function has tended to be used as a defensing measure,” said Derrick Walker, INDYCAR president of competition and operations. “The driver being overtaken activates his or her own P2P to defend, which defeats the intention of P2P, obviously. We will limit the availability of that information, which will make things interesting, particularly late in the race.”
The push-to-pass parameters are controlled by each car’s engine electronics and are preset to the count and time per use before each road and street course race. INDYCAR officials retain the ability to monitor each car’s push-to-pass functions in Race Control.