Felix Serralles and Felix Rosenqvist led the two Friday practice sessions and also spent the majority of the qualifying session trading quickest laps. So it should come as no surprise that the Felix show in Toronto continued in qualifying. It was Belardi Auto Racing’s Felix, the rookie Rosenqvist, that will lead the field to green for the second time this year.
Half-way through the half-hour session and the top five were: Felix Rosenqvist, Santiago Urrutia, Felix Serralles, Ed Jones, and Zach Veach.
With four minutes left in the session, the No. 55 of Santiago Urrutia had just turned the quickest lap of qualifying and immediately after tripping the timing line, the 19 year-old made hard contact in Turn 9. The Mazda sponsored Soul Red car from the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian stable sustained heavy damage on the left front, while also tagging the wall lightly with the left rear. The reigning Pro Mazda presented by Cooper Tire champion lost his two quickest lap for causing a red flag and will start the race in third.
A number of drivers, including Jones and Dean Stoneman, the top two in the championship were on flying laps when Urrutia’s red flag ended the session. Points leader Jones will start the race in fifth and his closest competitor Stoneman will have to work hard to make up ground from his 11th place starting spot.
Serralles told us that he was disappointed that he ran into traffic on his second set of tires, and thought that a sub-66 second lap would have been possible without the red flag.
Rosenqvist explained that because of the cold temperatures it took longer for the tires to come in and that on their second set of sticker tires they raised the air pressure to compensate. The Belardi Auto Racing
Indy Ligths Qualifying results:
| RANK | DRIVER | QUICKEST LAP | GAP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Felix Rosenqvist | 1:06.011 | 0.000 |
| 2 | Felix Serralles | 1:06.477 | 0.4659 |
| 3 | Santiago Urrutia | 1:06.621 | 0.6099 |
| 4 | Zach Veach | 1:06.835 | 0.8249 |
| 5 | Ed Jones | 1:06.839 | 0.8282 |
| 6 | Andre Negrao | 1:06.863 | 0.8523 |
| 7 | Kyle Kaiser | 1:06.999 | 0.9887 |
| 8 | Juan Piedrahita | 1:07.053 | 1.0424 |
| 9 | Zachary Claman De Melo | 1:07.103 | 1.0929 |
| 10 | Garett Grist | 1:07.158 | 1.1472 |
| 11 | Dean Stoneman | 1:07.309 | 1.2981 |
| 12 | Neil Alberico | 1:07.433 | 1.4220 |
| 13 | Dalton Kellett | 1:07.606 | 1.5955 |
| 14 | Shelby Blackstock | 1:07.965 | 1.9543 |
| 8 | Bobby Eberle | 1:13.607 | 2.8434 |
| 9 | TJ Fischer | 2:06.754 | 55.9903 |
The teams and drivers will have just over three hours to get prepared for the first of two Cooper Tires Indy Lights Grand Prix of Toronto races on Saturday afternoon at 12:25pm.