KVSH Racing’s Sébastien Bourdais win first race of Toronto Indycar Grand Prix. It’s the first victory for the Frenchman since Mexico 2007. Hélio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan complete the podium. Castroneves now is 28 points in front of Power in the driver’s championship.
The Race 1 of Toronto was scheduled for yesterday but due to the conditions of the track because of heavy rain, the organizers had decided to do this during the qualifying time of today. But today the race starts with a red flag after a crash between Luca Filippi and Simon Pagenaud which caused a traffic jam and the retirement of Takuma Sato.
But when the race back to the green flag, Hunter-Reay took the second place after overtakes Castroneves. Luca Filippi and Carlos Huertas crashes into the wall in different points of the circuit and this caused the caution and the retirement of the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing driver.
But his teammate came out benefited because when the pace car goes in, he overtook Wilson for the sixth place.
At the middle of the race Bourdais led this followed by Hunter-Reay, Castroneves, Kanaan, Dixon, Rahal, Wilson, Hawksworth, Hinchcliffe and Kimball in the top 10.
Castroneves seems have had more pace than Hunter-Reay and He and Target Chip Ganassi drivers overtook the Andretti Autosport car. Immediately the pit stops started and at the end of this, Pagenaud took the leadership with Bourdais second, Huertas third, Castroneves fourth and Kanaan fifth.
Pagenaud had an incredible pace and push his machine after his last pit stop in the fourth place; amazing stuff of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team after the accident who involved the Frenchman during the opening lap of the race.
Finally, Bourdais takes the victory with Castroneves and Kanaan completing the podium positions.
Castroneves now leads the driver’s championship with 28 points of distance with his teammate, Will Power. Simon Pagenaud is now third and Hunter-Reay downs to fourth place. Montoya is fifth.
Results:
Pos. | Car | Driver | Team | Gap | Diff | |
1 | 11 | Sebastien Bourdais | FRA | KVSH Racing | 65 Laps | |
2 | 3 | Helio Castroneves | BRA | Team Penske | + 3,340 | + 3,340 |
3 | 10 | Tony Kanaan | BRA | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | + 4,865 | + 1,525 |
4 | 77 | Simon Pagenaud | FRA | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | + 5,427 | + 0,562 |
5 | 9 | Scott Dixon | AUS | Target Chip Ganassi Racing | + 12,547 | + 7,120 |
6 | 15 | Graham Rahal | USA | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | + 15,580 | + 3,033 |
7 | 83 | Charlie Kimball | USA | Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing | + 28,697 | + 13,117 |
8 | 27 | James Hinchcliffe | CAN | Andretti Autosport | + 31,167 | + 2,470 |
9 | 19 | Justin Wilson | GBR | Dale Coyne Racing | + 1 Lap | – |
10 | 12 | Will Power | AUS | Team Penske | + 1 Lap | – |
11 | 7 | Mikhail Aleshin | RUS | Schmidt Peterson Motorsports | + 1 Lap | – |
12 | 8 | Ryan Briscoe | AUS | NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing | + 1 Lap | – |
13 | 98 | Jack Hawksworth | GBR | BHA / BBM with Curb-Agajanian | + 1 Lap | – |
14 | 20 | Mike Conway | GBR | Ed Carpenter Racing | + 1 Lap | – |
15 | 18 | Carlos Huertas | COL | Dale Coyne Racing | + 1 Lap | – |
16 | 25 | Marco Andretti | USA | Andretti Autosport | + 1 Lap | – |
17 | 34 | Carlos Muñoz | COL | Andretti Autosport – HVM Racing | + 1 Lap | – |
18 | 2 | Juan Pablo Montoya | COL | Team Penske | + 1 Lap | – |
19 | 17 | Sebastien Saavedra | COL | KV AFS Racing | + 1 Lap | – |
20 | 67 | Josef Newgarden | USA | Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing | + 2 Laps | – |
28 | Ryan Hunter-Reay | USA | Andretti Autosport | + 26 Laps | – | |
16 | Luca Filippi | ITA | Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing | + 48 Laps | – | |
14 | Takuma Sato | JAP | A.J. Foyt Enterprises | Contact |