Toronto race winner Pato O’Ward was not expecting such an outcome for his latest IndyCar race, but indeed put on a strong display in the Canadian streets. The Arrow McLaren driver, assisted by a great strategical call, cut championship lead Alex Palou’s advantage by 30 points, taking it below a hundred points.
A recovery drive
Toronto winner O’Ward discussed his strong IndyCar performance after the end of the session, praising his team’s work and effort.
“We keep making our Sundays so much harder than what they have to be. Qualifying has been not our friend. But Sundays have been. I feel like the gist of this year for at least the 5 side, it feels like it’s always a recovery Sunday, always been a recovery Sunday. We keep fighting our way forward.
“Today it was a very similar post to what I had in Mid-Ohio. We got hosed in timing in the qualifying here. We’ve been struggling a bit on the alternate, which sadly is the one you need to transfer. I knew I had such a strong car on the preferred tyre for the race.“
In spite of his Saturday mishap, which had left him starting from P10, his great car feeling and some great moves, including one on previous race leader Veekay, led him to a dominant win.
“I had a car that I could attack with. I had a car I could really put it where I needed to, at least just to get by people. We had to get really aggressive there sometimes. We had to get our elbows out a little bit if we want to keep this championship somewhat of a conversation.
“It’s always good to feel that way, and that gives you that little extra edge to make these days come to fruition. They did a great strategy. I made sure that I was going to be the winning one.“
Additionally, in Toronto McLaren had introduced upgrades, which have definitely aided O’Ward in his quest to secure a second seasonal win. He explained the impact these had on his ease of drive and how they allowed for stronger moves.
“It’s more of a feeling like you have something that is somewhat consistent, when you throw something random at it. If you dive into the inside, if you take maybe a different line somewhere, something that’s not just going to be like ‘screw you’ and lose three seconds, that’s a little bit of a consistency that we’ve always been trying to find, which in the race has always been better for us. In qualifying it’s been more of a theme of conversation.“
While he reckons the importance of the job done by the strategical team at the pit wall, which made for a strong start, the former Red Bull junior driver highlighted the importance of the ability of unlock his challenger’s full potential, thanks to the modifications recently introduced.
“That’s basically what you need. Like, you need a car that you can attack with and that you can pass people. I feel like you can’t just always rely on strategy. If we just relied on strategy today, I think maybe we would catch a whiff of a podium. But that’s not enough. You need something to be able to really fight your way forward, especially if we’re 10th, 15th, 12th.
“It feels really good to earn it today. It really does. Especially in a place that’s been a very tough weekend basically every time we come here. I’m really happy for everyone. Happy for Chevy, as well. Otherwise it was going to be a Honda, so… I’m really pleased with today.“
Key moments
The first moment in Toronto when O’Ward was stricken by the realisation that he could win the IndyCar race was during his first pit stop, as he had immediately relaized the choice of starting on alternates had been a great one.
“We had a great pit stop, the first pit stop. It was freaking awesome. The guys were great. We pushed hard in, we pushed hard out. We undercut everybody that was on the alternate. That was the first step. The second step, we could have just kind of maintained there and waited for the other guys to start peeling off. I didn’t really want to do that. I started picking them off one by one.
“When we positioned ourselves, I think we were fifth in line with four cars in front of us, tried to make ate bit more with the fuel. VeeKay was super strong. That’s why I said that I need to be behind the lead car. It’s a lot tougher if I was behind maybe Kyffin, as well. I don’t think I would have had the opportunity to overcut on VeeKay. It was just positioning myself to make it happen.“
