By Patrick Stephan
Myles Rowe would lead the field of 19 Tatuus IP-22 machines down to the green flag on a dry and relatively cleaned up race track. The NTT INDYCAR Series had just run their morning warm-up, all on slicks as the dried from overnight and morning showers that sent the USF2000 cars to wet tires earlier today.
Rowe got away clean and when they reached Turn 1, with Jace Denmark going around the outside to pick up the second spot.
A little further back, the red number 92 of Joel Granfors ran to the far inside entering the corner as the field worked to get from 2, 3, 4 wide through the narrowing first couple corners. At the exit of Turn 2, Granfors and Weir looked to be relatively in the groove side by side but would touch tires sending Weir a couple feet in to the air and hard in to the concrete barrier with the left side of his machine.
Weir would end up with the right side of his car on top of Granfors left front. Also getting collected were Ricardo Escotto whose left front made contact with Granfors right rear as that tangled trio came to a stop. About the same time, Louka St-Jean jumped his left front over the right rear of Jonathan Browne.
St.Jean would keep moving after the contact, but would only lake it over to Turn 6 before needed assistance from the AMR IndyCar Safety Team.
Browne and Escotto backed up their cars and left the scene with just Weir and Granfors remaining to be picked up by wreckers due to broken suspensions.
Under yellow, Rowe was leading Denmark, d’Orlando, Brooks, and Zendelli rounded out the Top 5.
Back to green on Lap 5 of 25, Rowe again got a clean jump, and the field moved successfully through 2 and 2. At Turn 3, Denmark looked to the outside and they went side by side at the corner entry, but made some contact at the exit and by the time we saw them in Turn 4, Denmark no longer had a front wing. Rowe may have pushed a little wide with Denmark on the outside, couldn’t quite tell from the video available.
Denmark would come straight to the pits for repairs as the green stayed out and Rowe remained the leader with d’Orlando now second followed by Brooks, Zendeli, and Missig.
Lap 10 saw d’Orlando just a couple car lengths back of Rowe, as that duo created a gap to Brooks and then Zendelli and Missig who are also nose to tail over the next several laps.
Brooks, Zendelli, and Missig would be fighting for 3rd, 4th and 5th during laps 14 and 15 with Zendeli getting to third at Turn 3 on Lap 16. Missig tried to follow him through, but Brooks was able to fight back and keep the 4th spot.
After that tussle, Salvador De Alba and Francesco Pizzi were able to close up and we have 5 cars in order behind Rowe and d’Orlando.
With 7 laps to go, d’Orlando had an issue and started dropping through the field as Zendeli, Missig, Brooks, DeAlba, and Pizzi moved by. d’Orlando, yesterday’s Race #1 winner was now running a couple seconds off the pace.
Myles Rowe was able to move out to a 5.3 second lead with 4 laps to run. Jack William Miller also had an incident on the track, losing his front wing and he too would begin dropping further through the field.
Rowe would manage that lead as the final laps clicked off. Kiki Porto and Yuven Sundaramoorthy would become the best battle on the track for a bit until de Alba tried to get Brooks for fourth while fending off Pizzi. But in both case the lead driver was able to keep their position.
Taking the checkers first, Myles Rowe notched his 5th win of the season by 4.4 seconds over Lirim Zendeli with Jordan Missig joining them on the podium.
Points and Quotes Courtesy Andersen Promotions:
Provisional championship points after 13 of 18 rounds:
1. Myles Rowe, 299
2. Kiko Porto, 218
3. Salvador de Alba, 215
4. Michael d’Orlando, 206
5. Joel Granfors, 206
6. Francesco Pizzi, 201
7. Lirim Zendeli, 189
8. Jace Denmark, 183
9. Jonathan Browne, 169
10. Jack William Miller, 158
Myles Rowe (#99 Penske Entertainment-Pabst Racing with Force Indy Tatuus IP-22): “First of all, the crowd here is amazing. I love Toronto. It is such a great city. It is such a tough race. The bumps are crazy. It is like New York City out there. I just have to give a huge thanks to God, my family, Force Indy, Pabst Racing, SimCraft, Sparco, Bell Helmets and the whole crew. They really put together such a package for us to have this kind of consistency this year. You need to have a certain kind of package to do really successful things at this level of motorsports. All these guys – Lirim, Jordan and the rest of the field – all of them are super competitive and super tough to beat. I just can’t thank you enough to all of my partners.”
Lirim Zendeli (#10 Vexavit/Ajdini Spedition-TJ Speed Motorsports Tatuus IP-22): “It was as difficult a race as it was fun. I didn’t expect so many overtakes. I went from P6 to P2 just by overtaking. I think Michael [d’Orlando] had some problems, but it was really fun. Jordan gave me a nice fight all race. Unfortunately, Myles was already gone by that time. But I am happy for the recovery because qualifying wasn’t great from my side and I came away with two podiums. I think I took the most points of all the drivers and I am very happy.”
Jordan Missig (#19 Racing for Mental Health/AMV Ventures-Pabst Racing Tatuus IP-22): “The start wasn’t as I planned, but we were able to settle in and get into a bit of a groove. As the race went on, a bit of attrition kicked in. Nonetheless, it was a great drive by Myles. He definitely deserved it. I can’t say enough about the Pabst crew. They put an awesome street car together. This is the second time in a row that we could have stood on the podium here in Toronto, but this time we earned it.”
| Pos | No | Driver | Hometown | Diff | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 99 | Myles Rowe | Powder Springs GA | ||
| 2 | 10 | Lirim Zendeli | Bochum Germany | 4.4155 | 4.4155 |
| 3 | 19 | Jordan Missig | Joliet IL | 5.0104 | 0.5949 |
| 4 | 44 | Christian Brooks | Santa Clarita CA | 8.1574 | 3.147 |
| 5 | 91 | Salvador de Alba | Guadalajara Mexico | 8.3999 | 0.2425 |
| 6 | 55 | Francesco Pizzi | Rome Italy | 8.5703 | 0.1704 |
| 7 | 12 | Kiko Porto | Recife Brazil | 16.1572 | 7.5869 |
| 8 | 90 | Yuven Sundaramoorthy | Oconomowoc WI | 16.7475 | 0.5903 |
| 9 | 7 | Bijoy Garg | Stanford CA | 22.7415 | 5.994 |
| 10 | 2 | Jonathan Browne | Dublin Ireland | 23.5337 | 0.7922 |
| 11 | 81 | Nicholas Monteiro | Sao Paulo Brazil | 32.238 | 8.7043 |
| 12 | 93 | Lindsay Brewer | Denver CO | 38.4746 | 6.2366 |
| 13 | 40 | Jack William Miller | Westfield IN | 40.3686 | 1.894 |
| 14 | 1 | Michael d’Orlando | Hartsdale NY | 59.112 | 18.7434 |
| 15 | 4 | Ricardo Escotto | Mexico City Mexico | 01:30.6 | 31.4827 |
| 16 | 20 | Jace Denmark | Phoenix AZ | 3 Laps | 3 Laps |
| DNF | 32 | Christian Weir | Naperville IL | DNF | 22 Laps |
| DNF | 3 | Louka St-Jean | Laval Quebec Canada | DNF | 1.1309 |
| DNF | 92 | Joel Granfors | Eskilstuna Sweden | DNF | 28.9573 |
