Written by Archie O’Reilly
From the moment cars hit the track for opening practice, Andretti Global’s Colton Herta has been the man to beat in Toronto. He paced each of the two practice sessions, including both of his segments in opening practice, and continued that form into qualifying to take his 14th career pole position at only 24 years old.
It was a third NTT P1 Award of the season for Herta after taking pole in Detroit and for the first Iowa Speedway race last weekend. He has started no lower than fourth on a street course in 2024 and has only been outside of the top four in qualifying on any type of track in a three-race stretch from Barber through the two Indianapolis races.
“I think it’s been the last few years Andretti has been very, very strong on street courses,” Herta said. “This year in particular seems to be another step. It’s great for us. I already love street courses the most out of all the tracks I think that we do. I think it’s the toughest single lap that you’ll put together all year.
“When you get a pole here, or at any street course that we go to, it’s very rewarding.”
Herta is already one-fifth of the way to Will Power’s all-time pole record at an age where Power had not even made his IndyCar debut. And Herta’s no-distraction approach in qualifying is an interesting one that evidently works extremely well for the young American.
“I never get told lap times because I don’t want to know,” Herta said. “I don’t really care about any of it because in my mind I’m always driving as hard as I can in qualifying. If someone say [I] need a tenth, that’s not going to make me drive harder. I’m already trying as hard as I can.
“It’s tough because you know how tight this field is. You know if you give up even just six inches off the apex of one corner, that’s going to drop you at least one spot, most likely more. It’s difficult to judge that when you’re braking from 200 miles per hour down to 60 miles per hour in 300 feet.
“It’s a very difficult thing. Saturdays are some of the hardest days that we have in this sport just because you need to be so perfect. When everybody is on their A-game like they are in qualifying, it’s very difficult to better somebody.”
Kyle Kirkwood joined teammate Herta on the front row to secure a lockout for the Andretti team. A second-place start matches his best qualifying position of the season, previously achieved at Laguna Seca.
“I’m super happy with our performance this weekend,” Kirkwood said. “From the start of the weekend, we’ve been really, really strong. We’ve not had to make many adjustments to the car, which is usually a trait of having a good weekend. Usually when you roll off quick, typically it translates into pretty good things. It’s been fluid. It’s been really good.
“Lockout is huge for Andretti Global. Of course I want the pole. If I’m not to get it, then obviously a teammate is the next best thing for it to happen.”
As Chip Ganassi Racing failed to get any of their five cars into the Fast 12 session, all five Andretti-run entries - including the two Meyer Shank Racing (MSR) cars - were able to transfer. Only Marcus Ericsson in the No.28 Andretti Honda did not make it into the Fast Six as MSR duo Felix Rosenqvist and David Malukas qualified third and sixth.
On Friday, AJ Foyt Racing’s Santino Ferrucci spoke about Andretti’s “moon dampers” as being part of their street course strength. And there is no denying the continued strength of the Andretti street course package, even if their drivers are not wholly sure why this is.
“Dampers are the biggest thing that teams are working on - potentially it’s that,” Kirkwood said. “Honestly, I don’t know much. They just say: ‘Drive it.’ It’s usually fast at street courses. That’s all the information I have for you. Honestly, I have no idea. I couldn’t tell you. I'm guessing overall grip [is a strength on street courses].”
There is a sense that downsizing from four to three cars may have been beneficial to Andretti to allow further progress in 2024.
“I don’t think it hurts,” Herta said. “I think having guys that can look at maybe two or three things rather than five or six in more detail is always better. I don’t think we were spread thin before but I think there’s so many more options on a bunch of things: shaker rig tests, straight line tests, sim days, actual testing, race weekends.
“There’s so many more people to help lessen the workload, which I think is why we have been a little bit more competitive this year.”
Ultimately, despite their continued street course speed, Andretti are yet to pick up a win in 2024 after two victories for Kirkwood - both on street courses - in his first season with the team last year. Herta has not won a race since the first Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race in 2022, albeit luck has often simply not fallen his way.
At Iowa last weekend, after starting on pole in the opening race, Herta’s chances of victory were scuppered by a poorly-timed caution. Earlier in the season, rain in Detroit prompted a forgivably incorrect wet-tyre change, coupled with another unfortunate yellow period, that sent him down the order from pole before an error sent him out of contention.
“That’s the bad thing about getting poles, you can only break even,” said Herta, who has three podiums to his name so far this year. “You can’t go further up. But it’s something that I want really bad. It’s been brutal to not have a win [in two years]. We’ve had pace and we’ve been doing the right things.
“We’re putting ourselves in positions to win but it hasn’t fallen our way for one reason or another. But I’m excited for tomorrow. It’s good to have another teammate up there that we can work on with strategy and help each other out.”
Herta feels Andretti have brought “strong race cars pretty much everywhere” in 2024. All he feels it will take is to continue to do the same things and the win will be a formality. A podium-sitter the last two years, and rolling off from pole this year, the 2024 visit to Toronto feels like a perfect opportunity for Herta to end his drought.
“This race is crazy with the strategy, big window,” Herta said. “IndyCar races like that tend to be crazy. There’s a whole bunch of different ways to win this race. Obviously it’s still a big advantage starting up front and that should help us.
“You can never take anything for granted in IndyCar racing… it doesn’t matter where you start. We have fast race cars - that’s the biggest thing, we checked that box. Everything else, we just need to that hope comes our way.”
Comments