Christian Lundgaard takes Honda Indy Toronto pole after top challengers slip in the rain

The right tires and confidence.

It will take a combination of both for drivers to contend in Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto if rain becomes a factor, like it was in Saturday’s qualifying sessions.

Top challengers Alex Palou, Scott Dixon and Colton Herta will start well down the grid after a day when 21-year-old Christian Lundgaard took the pole position at Exhibition Place.

“You’re tiptoeing around there. You’re just trying to find grip. You’re like: high risk, high reward,” said Lundgaard, the Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver who earned the pole on the final lap of qualifying.

With drivers struggling to get the most of out of their tires on the 11-turn street course, which was both wet and dry in spots, Lundgaard was the fastest qualifier for just the second time in his IndyCar career. Scott McLaughlin secured the second spot on row one, ahead of Pato O’Ward and Marcus Ericsson.

“That was a gnarly session,” O’Ward said. “It kept me on my toes every single lap. Obviously it was a drying racetrack, and it kept getting better and better. It was about having confidence in the car, and really attacking some of the curves (where) you didn’t quite know what they had in store for you.”

Dixon, last year’s winner, will start on the inside of the fourth row, while Palou — riding a three-race win streak — qualified on row eight. Herta, the pole winner at the last two IndyCar races and in Toronto last year, will line up on the outside of row seven. Toronto’s Devlin DeFrancesco, the lone Canadian in the field, qualified 22nd in a field of 27.

“We struggled with tire spin,” Herta said. “Maybe we have to make more adjustments, but we couldn’t get it today. But if this is a rain race, then maybe it’s good we had (rain in qualifying).”

As of late Saturday afternoon, the forecast called for a 50 per cent chance of rain when Sunday’s race starts at 1:53 p.m.

Lundgaard and O’Ward credited crew members who called for fresh rain tires with only minutes left in qualifying, which paid off.

“I was already finding grip (with the new tires on), so basically all I did was move from the wet line to the dry line through the turns,” Lundgaard said.

Drivers were essentially learning the track lap by lap. After rain during early qualifying, the track dried partially for the final session, in which the drivers with the top six times competed for the pole.

“This is the toughest street course I’ve ever combatted in the rain,” McLaughlin said. “The concrete dries faster than the asphalt, and you have to figure that out in split seconds — and then hope the car brakes, too. But when you figure it out, it can be very rewarding.”

McLaughlin spun out and almost stalled in the middle of the track just shy of the checkered flag. After a review, he avoided a penalty that likely would have placed him outside the top six.

Palou, meanwhile, qualified 15th and will start mid-pack for the first time this season. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver is the runaway leader in the IndyCar standings and had never started worse than seventh in nine races.

“We’re going to have to start back a bit, but we know we have a fast car,” Palou said with a smile. “We’ll have to work hard, for sure.”

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