By Steve Wittich

Similar to the first USF2000 practice session, it was a pair of veterans that were the quickest during the lone Indy Lights practice session.

Championship leader Kyle Kaiser led the way with a quick lap of 1 minute, 6.399 seconds, which was just over a-tenth of a lap quicker than fellow veteran Urrutia.

Rookies Aaron Telitz and Colton Herta were the third and fourth quickest, with veteran Shelby Blackstock making it three of five Belardi Auto Racing drivers in the top five on the timesheet.

It was a pair of Belardi Auto Racing drivers, Santiago Urrutia, and Aaron Telitz that both led in the first half of the 30 minute practice session, however it was the Uruguayan veteran who’s lap of 1 minute, 6.789 seconds that led the time sheet. Kyle Kaiser, Aaron Telitz, Colton Herta, and Neil Alberico were also in the top five, and all within six-tenths of a second of the provisional pole sitter.

The red flag came out just after the half-way point of the session for Urrutia, who missed a braking point and spun the black and gold No. 5 Mazda/Dallara. He got going again and the green flag came back out with 10 minutes left in the session.

With two minutes left in the session, championship leader Kaiser turned in a blistering lap of 1 minute, 6.399 seconds to go to the top of the time chart. Urrutia made

With only 30 seconds left in the session, Nicolas Dapero made fairly hard contact with the concrete wall in Turn 11, that meant the red and checkered flag flew ending the session with Kaiser on top. Dapero go was able to get out of the car under his own power, but the Juncos Racing will have quite a bit of work to do to get that car ready for qualifying tomorrow morning.

The majority of the quickest laps were all turned in the final five minutes of the session, and twelve of the 14 entries were all within one second of Kaiser.

The 14 entries turned a total of 290 laps. There were five different drivers that turned 22 circuits, the most in the field.

Cooper Tires Indy Lights Grand Prix of Toronto Presented by Allied Building Products Practice #1

RANK CAR NO. DRIVER QUICK LAP GAP LAPS TURNED
1 18 Kyle Kaiser 1:06.399 –.—- 22
2 5 Santi Urrutia 1:06.513 0.1137 19
3 9 Aaron Telitz 1:06.807 0.4074 22
4 98 Colton Herta 1:06.871 0.4713 20
5 51 Shelby Blackstock 1:06.871 0.4716 22
6 26 Matheus Leist 1:06.924 0.5251 22
7 2 Juan Piedrahita 1:06.973 0.5740 22
8 13 Zachary Claman De Melo 1:06.990 0.5912 20
9 28 Dalton Kellett 1:07.194 0.7949 20
10 22 Neil Alberico 1:07.263 0.8632 20
11 31 Nicolas Dapero 1:07.287 0.8873 20
12 27 Nico Jamin 1:07.323 0.9238 20
13 48 Ryan Norman 1:08.249 1.8502 21
14 11 Garth Rickards 1:10.761 4.3621 20

That’s it for a light day of Mazda Road To Indy presented by Cooper Tire action, but the ladder series action picks up tomorrow.

USF2000 has their second qualifying session of the day bright and early at 8am, and their first race of the weekend at noon.

Indy Lights qualifies for their first race at 8:35am and their first race of the weekend gets the green flag at 1pm.

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