Lundgaard storms to pole, points leader Palou 15th after wet qualifying

Christian Lundgaard secured the second pole position of his IndyCar career in Toronto after a challenging qualifying session in changeable conditions.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver posted the best time around a still-damp track on slick tyres to beat Scott McLaughlin to the top spot on the grid by three tenths of a second.

Championship leader Alex Palou was caught out by the rain in his group session and failed to progress through to the second phase of qualifying in eighth. He will start down in 15th for Sunday’s race.

Rain fell over the short Toronto street circuit at the end of the first group session, leading to challenging conditions for drivers over the rest of qualifying. The low grip levels caught out many, including Romain Grosjean, Colton Herta, Agustin Canapino, Graham Rahal and Marcus Armstrong, who all had spins or ran off track around the sodden circuit during the session.

Lundgaard was the only RLL driver to reach the Fast Six, along with Marcus Ericsson’s Ganassi, two McLarens in the form of Pato O’Ward and Felix Rosenqvist and two Penskes in McLaughlin and Will Power, reaching the final phase of qualifying for the first time. As the track started to dry, the six drivers switched to slicks and battled to find grip, with Lundgaard doing the best of everyone to set the quickest time of a 1’04.156 on his final timed lap.

McLaughlin suffered an early spin in the Fast Six and appeared to have impeded both O’Ward and Ericsson while attempting to recover. However, he ultimately retained his position on the front row alongside Lundgaard. O’Ward took third place, ahead of Ericsson, with Rosenqvist in fifth ahead of Power in sixth.

Chip Ganassi just missed out on having Scott Dixon reach the Fast Six, lamenting the decision not to take a fresh set of wet tyres in the closing minutes of round two. Dixon will start from seventh, ahead of Kyle Kirkwood, Grosjean and Dixon’s team mate Marcus Armstrong in tenth. Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden will start from 11th, one place ahead of Rinus VeeKay.

Colton Herta, the pole winner for the last two rounds, will start from 14th, just one place ahead of Palou. It was a frustrating session for McLaren’s Alexander Rossi, who suffered an apparent electrical failure on his car in his first group session and was left stranded on the back row of the grid in 26th. Graham Rahal will start from the very rear of the field after he was eliminated when he spun and broke the front wing on his car, leaving him unable to improve on his earlier times.

Debutante Tom Blomqvist, stepping in for Simon Pagenaud who has not been medically cleared to compete after his accident at Mid-Ohio, qualified a respectable 20th in only his second day of driving an IndyCar.

The 85 lap race will start at 2pm local time on Sunday and will only be watchable on Peacock in the United States.

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Indy Toronto qualifying results

Position	Car	Driver	Team	Engine
1	45	Christian Lundgaard	RLL	Honda
2	3	Scott McLaughlin	Penske	Chevrolet
3	5	Pato O’Ward	McLaren	Chevrolet
4	8	Marcus Ericsson	Ganassi	Honda
5	6	Felix Rosenqvist	McLaren	Chevrolet
6	12	Will Power	Penske	Chevrolet
7	9	Scott Dixon	Ganassi	Honda
8	27	Kyle Kirkwood	Andretti	Honda
9	28	Romain Grosjean	Andretti	Honda
10	11	Marcus Armstrong	Ganassi	Honda
11	2	Josef Newgarden	Penske	Chevrolet
12	21	Rinus VeeKay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
13	106	Helio Castroneves	Meyer Shank	Honda
14	26	Colton Herta	Andretti	Honda
15	10	Alex Palou	Ganassi	Honda
16	77	Callum Ilott	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
17	18	David Malukas	Coyne/HMD	Honda
18	78	Agustin Canapino	Juncos Hollinger	Chevrolet
19	30	Jack Harvey	RLL	Honda
20	60	Tom Blomqvist	Meyer Shank	Honda
21	20	Ryan Hunter-Reay	Carpenter	Chevrolet
22	29	Devlin DeFrancesco	Andretti	Honda
23	51	Sting Ray Robb	Coyne/RWR	Honda
24	14	Santino Ferrucci	Foyt	Chevrolet
25	55	Benjamin Pedersen	Foyt	Chevrolet
26	7	Alexander Rossi	McLaren	Chevrolet
27	15	Graham Rahal	RLL	Honda

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