Scott Dixon made history in IndyCar’s return to Exhibition Place, winning his fourth Honda Indy Toronto and finally getting his first win of the 2022 season.
The No. 9 pit crew got Dixon the lead early, jumping Colton Herta in the pits with the undercut as Herta dealt with traffic on pit exit. From there, Dixon stayed clear of the chaos behind and put on another masterful performance as only the “Iceman” could do. Herta remained composed and held onto second place, while Felix Rosenqvist once again threw his name into the conversation for Arrow McLaren SP‘s 2023 driver lineup with a podium finish in third.
This win also marks a historic milestone for the six-time champion, tying Mario Andretti for second all-time on the IndyCar Series wins list with 52.
“It’s amazing, honestly, to be close with Mario,” Dixon said of the record post-race. “Everytime I’m asked these questions I’m just so thankful that we still have A.J. (Foyt, winningest driver in series history) and him in the pits and we get to see them and to talk to them, it’s just fantastic.”
Herta led the field to green with Dixon alongside him, but before the field could get settled a caution was thrown on lap two for Takuma Sato, who was forced into the outside wall of turn one by Pato O’Ward while running three-wide in the back of the pack. The subsequent debris was the call for caution and ended Sato’s day.
This time with a single-file restart, Herta kept his lead up until the first set of pitstops where he was jumped by Dixon. Scott McLaughlin, who held the pit stall right in front of Herta, pit on the same lap as the polesitter, forcing a slower pit exit out of Herta that gave Dixon the advantage on hot tyres. Graham Rahal, who started the race on the primary Firestone black tyre stayed out in plenty of clean air on an alternate strategy that put him into the top ten.
Rinus Veekay and O’Ward stayed out after Rahal, also on alternate strategies also led a few laps before pitting on lap 31 and 32 respectively.
At this point, Dixon and Herta were able to get past Jimmie Johnson and Conor Daly, who also had yet to pit, and built up a gap of over 15 seconds to the rest of the leaders, who would need a caution to get back into the race. And boy, they got a juicy one.
On lap 46, Rosenqvist made a move up the inside of Alexander Rossi into turn three battling for fourth place, and oversteer from the Swede forced contact that knocked the wheel out of Rossi’s hands and sent him head-on into the outside barrier. Rossi certainly felt deja vu from his incident at Mid-Ohio, another incident where the wheel was sent out of his hands. Race control did not take any action.
More issues came to the leaders in the following pit stops under caution where Josef Newgarden, who was in third place at the time, came to a stop in his pit box too far away for the fuel to properly secure thanks to the unique nature of Toronto’s pit road. This sent Newgarden plummeting out of the top ten and into the mid pack. Dixon and Herta held their positions, while Rosenqvist gained one more spot to third. Veekay and Daly elected not to pit, so they led the field to green on lap 50.
Another caution came quickly on lap 55, as chunks of concrete from the track’s surface began to come up. Under this brief caution, Daly pit, but Veekay stayed out again, and led the field to green once more on lap 59.
As the saying goes, “cautions breed cautions,” and another came before a full green flag lap could be run. Fighting at the back of the pack, Johnson squeezed Kyle Kirkwood into the inside wall of turn nine, collecting the both of them and bringing out the yellow. Kirkwood’s day was done, and he was penalized for avoidable contact, while Johnson continued on.
Veekay now pit under this caution, and thanks to the location of the incident forcing the pace car to slow down, he was able to blend back into the field in the top fifteen with fresh alternate red tyres and fight for a top ten.
The longest caution of the day, Dixon led the field back to green on lap 67, with some exciting battles further back in the pack. McLaughlin, who was running in the top five, fell victim to Rahal in turn one, and fell all the way to ninth as cars overtook him on the backstretch. Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson found themselves in a tight battle in the top ten, bringing back memories of their incident at Road America especially with the news of Palou potentially joining McLaren Racing next season.
But back at the front of the field Dixon cruised from this point to the finish, able to save his fuel while still holding a gap to Herta, en route to that historic victory.
Rahal, who started fourteenth, made that alternate strategy work to perfection as he gained ten spots to finish fourth, a personal and team best result the season. Ericsson managed to win the duel with Palou to finish fifth, with his teammate(?) behind him in sixth. Like Rahal, Simon Pagenaud put on a brilliant performance to finish seventh after starting eighteenth.
Christian Lundgaard continued to be the class of this rookie group with his eighth place finish, putting two Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing machines in the top ten as the team begins to turn their luck around in the second half of the season. McLaughlin maintained ninth after falling back from the restart, while his teammate Newgarden recovered from his pit stop error to finish tenth.
Teams don’t get to rest, however, as focus immediately shifts to Iowa Speedway as IndyCar returns to the 1.4 km short oval for the Hy-VeeDeals.com 250 and Hy-Vee Salute to Farmers 300 doubleheader weekend.
Honda Indy Toronto – Official Results
| RANK | CAR NO. | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
| 1 | 9 | Scott Dixon | NZL | Chip Ganassi Racing | 1:38:45.3087 |
| 2 | 26 | Colton Herta | USA | Andretti Autosport | + 0.8106 sec. |
| 3 | 7 | Felix Rosenqvist | SWE | Arrow McLaren SP | + 1.349 sec. |
| 4 | 15 | Graham Rahal | USA | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | + 4.483 sec. |
| 5 | 8 | Marcus Ericsson | SWE | Chip Ganassi Racing | + 5.126 sec. |
| 6 | 10 | Alex Palou | ESP | Chip Ganassi Racing | + 6.3629 sec. |
| 7 | 60 | Simon Pagenaud | FRA | Meyer Shank Racing | + 8.7398 sec. |
| 8 | 30 | Christian Lundgaard (R) | DEN | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | + 9.382 sec. |
| 9 | 3 | Scott McLaughlin | NZL | Team Penske | + 10.2868 sec. |
| 10 | 2 | Josef Newgarden | USA | Team Penske | + 10.6561 sec. |
| 11 | 5 | Pato O’Ward | MEX | Arrow McLaren SP | + 12.4284 sec. |
| 12 | 18 | David Malukas (R) | USA | Dale Coyne Racing w/ HMD Motorsports | + 13.3711 sec. |
| 13 | 21 | Rinus VeeKay | NED | Ed Carpenter Racing | + 18.2715 sec. |
| 14 | 77 | Callum Ilott (R) | GBR | Juncos Hollinger Racing | + 18.4471 sec. |
| 15 | 12 | Will Power | AUS | Team Penske | + 19.0185 sec. |
| 16 | 28 | Romain Grosjean | FRA | Andretti Autosport | + 19.7939 sec. |
| 17 | 06 | Helio Castroneves | BRA | Meyer Shank Racing | + 20.3903 sec. |
| 18 | 29 | Devlin DeFrancesco (R) | CAN | Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport | + 21.2042 sec. |
| 19 | 45 | Jack Harvey | GBR | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | + 21.947 sec. |
| 20 | 20 | Conor Daly | USA | Ed Carpenter Racing | + 24.2445 sec. |
| 21 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | USA | Chip Ganassi Racing | + 12 Laps |
| 22 | 14 | Kyle Kirkwood (R) | USA | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | Crash |
| 23 | 27 | Alexander Rossi | USA | Andretti Autosport | Crash |
| 24 | 4 | Dalton Kellett | CAN | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | Mechanical |
| 25 | 51 | Takuma Sato | JPN | Dale Coyne Racing w/ Dale Coyne Racing | Crash |
