For most of the final 20 laps, less than a second covered the top two drivers with it ebbing and flowing depending on how traffic played out. It would get up to a second and a half when Pagenaud could clear a car because the only place Pagenaud would lap a car was into turn three. Once Pagenaud was clear, Dixon was screwed. Nowhere from turn four to turn 11 could Dixon get pass a lapped car. Dixon had to wait a full lap before he could pass that lapped car into turn three.
It was never in doubt for Pagenaud but boy was it a hairy situation and at the start of a three-week period where Pagenaud and Dixon have to start to close the gap to the championship leading Americans, Pagenaud got the larger haul of points while Dixon only skimmed a few off the top. From 61 points back to 39 points back for the Frenchman, it was a great start of a title push for Pagenaud.
2. Credit to Dixon for chasing down Pagenaud. I am sure other drivers would have been able to do the same but Dixon might have done it quicker than most. He was there but there is only one place to make a pass at Toronto, or at least one reasonable place to make a move, and that is into turn three. Dixon couldn't get close into that corner. He gets a runner-up finish, his fourth podium finish in five street course races but he is still 86 points back in the championship.
3. It never seemed like Alexander Rossi had it today, similar to St. Petersburg. He had a good car but not one that could challenge for the victory. In St. Petersburg, he finished fifth and today his car was good enough for third. Rossi has five podium finishes in the last six races. He is doing all he can to win this championship but he still has to do more.
4. Josef Newgarden's championship lead is down to four points over Rossi after today but he is fortunate Rossi isn't heading back across the border with the top stop. Newgarden brushed the wall exiting turn 11 with about three or four laps to go and he had to limp home. If he does that five laps earlier, forget it. He may have still finished but he would have dropped at least two or three spots. If he had done it ten laps earlier, Newgarden would have had to make a pit stop and likely finished off the lead lap. He gets a fourth place result and he is making it tough on Rossi but he cannot make the same mistake again.
5. Felix Rosenqvist gets a top five finish and he was a bit fortunate in this one. During that final stint, Sébastien Bourdais ran wide in turn three and Takuma Sato lost an engine. Rosenqvist probably should have finished seventh but he kept his nose clean and he was the top rookie in this one. He never put a foot wrong this weekend.
6. The top five drought continues for James Hinchcliffe but a sixth place finish from 14th on the grid is nothing to hang his head about. He had a great start and picked up a few spots down the stretch. This isn't a great season for Hinchcliffe and he will look to end this top five drought at Iowa, where he took a surprising victory a year ago.
7. Colton Herta went from 16th to seventh and Herta was on the move. He made some passes early and it got him a seventh place finish. He drove a smart race and this is what he needs after the hell that was April and May for him. Herta needs laps and he got them today.
8. This could have been a better day for Sébastien Bourdais but he finishes where he started in eighth. He was pushing for a top five before he went wide in turn three, he actually got his nose in the tires but kept going. This was a missed opportunity.
9. Nobody wants to be in a lap one accident but that was how Graham Rahal's day started. However, Rahal ended up finishing ninth. He took up a slightly different strategy and it got him a top ten finish. He benefited from his teammate Sato losing an engine unfortunately but Rahal bounced back as best as he could after a rough start.
10. Marco Andretti's weekend started well but it seems to be the curse of Marco. If he is near the top five on Friday, he will drop to the middle of the pack on Saturday and Sunday ends up being the worst of the three days. That is what happened this weekend He was around the top five on Friday, started seventh and he finished tenth, which is actually a great result for him, but it was looking like it was going to be worse. Andretti was around tenth for the entire race but he was not going forward in this one. He did have a nice spin and kept it out of the wall after being collateral damage in the Rahal-Will Power incident on lap one but this wasn't a day where Andretti started in the top ten and was pushing for more. It is still a great result for Andretti.
11. Santino Ferrucci keeps up his lead for most laps completed this season and Ferrucci should be commended for his ability of not getting into trouble because Ferrucci really wasn't the 11th best car today. He went longer on stints but he should have probably finished 15th or 16th. Instead, an engine failure, a pair of teammates getting into one another, a final lap crash and a few cars that could not make up for the first lap incident allowed Ferrucci to make up ground and he gets an 11th place finish.
12. Quickly through the rest of the field: Ed Jones and Spencer Pigot were both in contention for top ten finishes and then they got into each other in turn four. Pigot had front wing damage and Jones dropped like a rock. It is one step forward and two steps back for Ed Carpenter Racing with Jones in 12th and Pigot in 15th. Zach Veach led some laps during pit cycle but this has been a terrible sophomore season, as he finished 13th. Max Chilton got a 14th place finish; one off his starting position so I guess that is good.
13. Ryan Hunter-Reay would probably be fine with Toronto falling off the schedule because his results have been crap since his 2012 victory. Hunter-Reay was starting 11th but had a terrible start and that forced him to go down the run off area in turn eight when the first lap accident occurred. Hunter-Reay didn't have it today and he finished 16th.
Let's cover all the innocent bystanders from the lap one accident: Tony Kanaan snuck on through but he was not mentioned once in this race other than when he was lapped. Marcus Ericsson did his best not to get into Hunter-Reay or Rahal but he was hit from behind by Matheus Leist. This forced Ericsson to have lengthy repairs.
It wasn't malicious of Leist, just a nudge but that was enough but to add insult to injury, Leist was nearly through the incident when he stalled. Rahal, Power and Ericsson were all restarted before Leist and Leist was the only one to go a lap down. It didn't matter; Leist was always going to finish outside the top fifteen.
14. This was a crappy weekend for Will Power. It didn't start well with his qualifying result but that first lap accident was on him. Power was aggressive into turn eight of all places and he should be thanking his lucky stars he didn't end anybody's race. He was running tenth for most of this one and on the final lap he locked up his tires and slid into the turn eight tire barrier. That dropped him to 18th and that has to be the nail in the coffin for his championship hopes.
15. Oh, and Sage Karam was in this race and finished 21st, six laps down. It appeared Karam had mechanical issues make this cameo appearance a difficult outing.
16. Toronto is the worst street course on the IndyCar schedule and I hate to say that but Toronto is not what it was. I know the pit lane had to be moved somewhere but moving it into the turn nine through eleven section has made the course worse. That section is too tight and how nobody had a race end because of contact with the barrier exiting turn 11 is an astonishing achievement.
It is frustrating because Toronto is great and Canada deserves two IndyCar races, maybe even three, but the problem with Toronto is for the last eight years it feels like the race is being squeezed out of the city. Not because nobody wants the race but because the city is changing and the area is developing.
Look at how much BMO Field has expanded in the last 15 years. There was a hotel built at the original pit exit and there is no other room for the race. IndyCar is making the most of what is available.
I was looking at aerial images of Exhibition Place for an alternate spot for pit lane because the final three corners need to get back to the original width or at least close to it. Those corners are too tight, Formula E circuit tight.
Here is my observation and proposal for a new pit lane location in yellow:
Instead of running with the course it would turn off and run parallel with BMO Field with pit lane exit on the outside of turn 11.
I am not sure if it could work but it is an idea. I think it would allow the racetrack to be wider and it would allow pit lane to be wider.
The problem is that parking lot next to the stadium is used for a grandstand and Honda had a dirt patch for kids to run motorcycles and it brings us back to the problem with Exhibition Place is there is not enough room for this event.
In my mind, you got to make sure the venue is suitable for the race and whether or not Honda can put down dirt so kids can ride motorcycle is a secondary concern to me. The grandstand on the other hand would have to be moved and squeezed in somewhere else.
A question I have about this event is what is BMO Field doing during this weekend? I know Toronto FC and the Toronto Argonauts are out of town but is the stadium sitting vacant? If it is, a lot of the auxiliary stuff should be housed in there. That should be a convention-like atmosphere. It is a plot of open land. You can put the dirt for the motorcycles and other tents in there.
There are issues with that. For starters, you don't want to ruin the field and opening the stadium up may involve hiring more security but I am throwing things at the wall here because I fear the Honda Indy Toronto is starting to feel outdated and something has to be done.
I would hate to see Toronto fall off the schedule but that could be a reality and Canada should have a race. There aren't many venues ready for IndyCar and after last week's IMSA race at Mosport and Victor Franzoni's accident I feel comfortable in saying Mosport is not up to standards for an IndyCar race.
There is part of me that wouldn't mind this race moving to Montreal and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. It is a nice venue, it can house IndyCar and the support series and it is another beautiful city to visit. I would hate IndyCar to leave Toronto but for the last few years we have seen IndyCar and the Honda Indy Toronto get more and more crammed in and soon the city might realize this event no longer fits.
Does IndyCar want to be proactive and move out before it gets kicked out or does it want to learn the hard way?
17. Six days until a night race at Iowa and only six races remain in the IndyCar season; it is starting to feel like the end of summer.
