TORONTO – With new pavement adorning the start/finish straight at the Honda Indy Toronto, the bumps that made Turn 1 a bone-jarring experience are history.

Despite the pounding they gave drivers over the years, two-time Toronto winner Sebastien Bourdais almost felt a bit nostalgic after seeing the new asphalt at the Exhibition Place street circuit on Thursday when drivers and crews made their track walk.

“I will miss the bumps in general, but not the big one that was developing in the middle of the braking zone,” said Bourdais who drives the No. 18 Team Mouser Electronics/Molex Honda for Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan.

“That one was just super, super annoying, random, complicated — sometimes you made it through OK and others you were getting air. There's bumpy and there's ‘a problem,’ and that one was a problem.”

The new pavement covers the length of the front straight and ends where the concrete patch in the middle of first turn begins. Most drivers thought the paving crew did a good job with the transitions between the new asphalt and the concrete, which appear nearly seamless with no big rises or drops. The drain cover on the inside of Turn 1 remains in place. The short stretch from Turn 8 to just past the entry to the pit lane has also been resurfaced.

The big question for the drivers to solve in Friday practice is whether the new surface will offer more grip than the previous one.

“It's always difficult to say,” Bourdais said. “The new stuff always tends to be tar heavy and tar isn't really super grippy, so it's going to be interesting. Until you see the interaction between the rubber compound of the tire and the new pavement, it's hard to make a prediction.”

The new pavement doesn't make any difference to drivers like Schmidt Peterson Motorsports rookie Robert Wickens, who hasn’t raced in Toronto in more than a decade, when he drove in Formula Atlantics.

“I honestly don't even remember how the car was here, I just remember the track layout,” Wickens said with a laugh. The layout has been revised since then, with the pit lane moving from the inside of the track to the outside to accommodate construction of a new hotel.

“It's the same for everyone and Toronto's character has a lot to do with the surface, so I think it's going to be a challenging track and we don't know what the grip level will be like on the new surface. For all we know, we are all going to hate it.”

Although reduced teeth rattling will be the direct result of the new, smoother entry to the first corner, it likely also means the drivers will be quicker around the entire track. Engineers no longer need to ensure their cars won't bottom out over the bumps.

“If you can drop the ride height by three or four millimeters, that will buy you downforce for the rest of the lap, so that will definitely make the car faster everywhere around the track,” said Bourdais.

“The gains will be from the added downforce from the lower ride height because the corners themselves haven't really changed. The slick point is still the concrete patch and that's right at the apex.”

It's that characteristic that always made Toronto a favorite stop on the calendar for Simon Pagenaud.

The No. 22 DXC Technology Team Penske Chevrolet driver feels the resurfacing simply adds a new wrinkle to a good circuit and the drivers will just need to adapt.

“The concrete patches really give you an opportunity to dance with the car, and even if the setup is not perfect, you can make it work,” said the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series champion.

“Now it's going to be easier to slow down and to brake later in turn 1, so it will reduce the difference between the cars and the ones riding better won't have as much of an advantage. But at the end of the day, it's still very much a driver's track. I love the track, it's fun.”

Drivers have three practices (10:40 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. ET Friday and 9:50 a.m. Saturday) to become adjusted to the track ahead of Verizon P1 Award qualifying at 1:55 p.m. Saturday. The 85-lap Honda Indy Toronto going Sunday at 3 p.m. (NBCSN and Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network).