Lundgaard’s redemption, Herta’s defence: A look ahead at the 2025 Honda Indy Toronto

Written by Olivia Kairu

Honda Indy Toronto 2025 Welcome Presser | Credit: Julia Bissessar

As has been tradition for the past 14 years, the Honda Indy Toronto race weekend kicked off on Thursday with the unveiling of the William Ashley crystal trophies by the previous year's winner. 2024 victor, Colton Herta, took part in the ceremony, offering insight into his expectations for the upcoming race.

“We’re always very excited to be here (in Toronto) and enjoy racing in this country. I think it’s a track that poses a lot of different challenges. The biggest one we see is that it’s a street circuit, so there's no room for error, and the concrete walls are not your friends. Any mistake turns into quite a big one here very fast, and it’s a good mix of high-speed and low-speed corners."

"Strategy is always tough to nail for the strategists, the pit stops are always difficult on this curvy pit lane that we have…but always tends to put on a good race,” the Andretti Global driver spoke generally of the challenge he and the rest of the pack face ahead of the weekend.

Honda Indy Toronto trophies | Credit: Olivia Kairu

We briefly had the chance to speak about qualifying strategy and his thoughts on how starting behind the front row affects a driver’s chances.

“I think you can do well from anywhere, in my rookie year, while still learning all the tricks we drove from 16th to 7th,” he said.

“To win, it obviously makes it difficult starting from the back, but never say never. Even if we don’t qualify at the front, we should have a pretty good race.” Adding to the already daunting task of weaving through the streets of Toronto, volatile weather conditions loom.

 “The teams do spend a lot of money to get the best radar systems possible, to try to predict [the weather] as best as possible, but radar systems are still not perfect, and it’s hard to predict what the weather might be during the race. 

“So it is an exciting one for the strategists, especially when we get weather like that, because it’s more on their shoulders. Do we need to pit now and put on rain tyres? Can we stay out and hold out on the rain? It’s a tough one.” 

We later had the chance to catch up with Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard after the welcome presser. The Danish driver brought his No.45 car across the chequered flag for his first NTT IndyCar Series victory two years ago around Toronto’s Exhibition Place circuit.

Now in an Arrow McLaren seat, he spoke of the challenge the Chevrolet-powered outfit has ahead of them in snagging a street circuit victory from the domination of Honda-powered cars this season, and his sights on securing a redemption win.

Christian Lundgaard Honda Indy Toronto | Credit: Julia Bissessar

“It’s interesting because I don’t really think the results tell the full story. I think Chevy has been much more competitive than it looks on paper. At the end of the day, if you look at it, the races that Chevy has missed out Alex has won and he’s beaten all of us. But there have been sessions where Chevy has been P2 through to P7, and there’s one Honda above us, which is Alex,” he said.

“We had a Chevy lockout in Iowa for race one, so I think it just depends on how the races pan out. It looks one-sided, which I don’t necessarily think is the truth.” 

We then spoke about the package the team have with them this weekend, his hopes that span from qualifying and onward to Sunday, looking to secure a second Toronto race win.

“I’ve never driven the Arrow McLaren Chevy around here, so I don’t really know, but in terms of Detroit, which is probably the closest we get to here, from the car’s setup perspective, we weren’t really great there. We needed to figure some stuff out, and I think we can be in the fast six,” he said.

 “Obviously, we always hope to win the race; it would be great to repeat, but the people to really beat are the Andretti cars. They’re always so strong on street courses, unfortunately, they’re Honda cars, which hurts our luck in that sense, but if we can outperform them, then we have a chance of winning.”

 With Herta seeking to uphold his status as Toronto champion and Lundgaard looking for a redemption win, the last street circuit race of the season is shaping up to be one to keep an eye on.