Herta wins another pole for Toronto IndyCar race
Colton Herta finally broke through. After nine consecutive races with nine different pole winners, the 22-year-old Californian became IndyCar’s first two-time pole winner this season. Herta posted a fast lap of 59.2698 seconds Saturday on Toronto’s bumpy, 11-turn, 1.786-mile temporary street course, edging six-time series champ Scott Dixon.
It’s Herta’s ninth career pole and his first since April’s race in Long Beach, Calif.
“It’s always nice when you get to drive a race car that you know can get there, and yeah, we put it all together,” Herta said. “The car’s amazing, the team’s amazing.”
Herta’s been pretty good, too.
He’s won four races since the start of 2021 and seven times since joining the series fulltime in 2019 — all on road courses. And earlier this week, Herta spent two days in Portugal testing cars for McLaren’s Formula One team.
But once he hopped back in an IndyCar car this weekend, it all felt and looked natural.
“I was a little bit worried about maybe taking a session to get back into it,” he said. “But as soon as I got in the car, the seating position and everything is so different that it was almost kind of like a light switch just flicked in my head that this was the IndyCar. It took maybe one or two laps. The actual driving style isn’t incredibly different, so it was pretty seamless to kind of go back and forth.” It certainly appeared so.
Dixon settled for second at 59.3592, falling just short of winning his first non-Indianapolis 500 pole since 2016.
“Probably over-attacked on the last lap there, lost quite a bit of time in (turn) six,” Dixon said. “There’s always things you can improve. Congrats to Colton, it was a great lap. Looking forward to starting close up to the front and hopefully have a clean day.”
The New Zealand driver for Chip Ganassi Racing needs one more win to tie Mario Andretti (52) for No. 2 on the series’ career list. A win also would help Dixon move back into contention for a potential record-tying seventh series crown, matching A.J. Foyt.
Two-time series winner Josef Newgarden will start third after going 59.5257 despite brushing the wall in the sixth turn before parking the No. 2 Chevrolet.