“Not give this f**ker another win” - Herta reacts to Toronto IndyCar pole

Credit: Julia Bissessar

Colton Herta has hailed his Andretti Global team’s street course package after claiming his third pole position in four visits to the Toronto streets.

The 25-year old won IndyCar’s only race outside of the United States from pole last year and has ousted Chip Ganassi Racing’s championship leader Álex Palou by 0.2758s to defend his P1 Award from 2024. It is a second pole of the year for Herta - after taking the honours in Detroit - and means he has started on the front row for every street course race in 2025.

“[Andretti] keep impressing me every time we come here,” he said. “The car’s still that much faster than everybody else. It’s just what this team is capable of around here for the street courses. Continue to feel like a dominant force in the league for that style of racing.

“I think that’s due to what this car is able to do over the bumps and how it’s able to grip - especially land and keep producing grip without stepping and hopping three or four times after you hit a bump. Its ability over the bumps, it’s pretty incredible. 

“Fortunately, unfortunately, that’s all I know. We’ve always been extremely fast at street courses while I’ve been here. I’m not sure what it really feels like to have a really bad car over the bumps and I don’t want to know.”

There is probably no such thing as a perfect lap, Herta admits, though he believes his pole lap was close to that. But there was a narrow escape en-route to going the distance, with a fifth-place result in Group 1 of qualifying only seeing him advance to the Fast 12 by 0.0434s.

Herta had topped Practice 2 with a margin of over half-a-second to third place but struggled on the softer alternate tyres in Practice 1, where he placed 15th and last in the first split group segment. Those issues resurfaced in qualifying.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

“It was a stressful one,” Herta said. “We had to make some adjustments that worked beautifully and got us back into contention. It was really, really strange. It felt like what I was feeling in the car yesterday on the [alternate] tyres; we were very uncompetitive then. 

“We had a lot of understeer. The front was sliding a lot. It wasn’t reacting well to the bumps. Once we were able to make some of the changes we did, it brought the car to life. They were really minor things. It was a really big offset on balance. 

“For what we did, I was really surprised how reactive the car was to it.”

Herta currently sits ninth in the standings - 271 points behind leader Palou and already mathematically out of title contention with five races remaining - after finishing a career-best runner-up in the championship at only 31 points behind Palou last year.

The American’s sole podium this season has been third place in Detroit and, compared to 13 top-10 results last year, he only has five top-10 finishes. He was on the podium six times last year - including two wins - but in 2025 has seen a regression to the results that saw him finish 10th in the championship twice in succession in 2022 and 2023.

“I’ve got some ideas [why],” Herta said. “It’s never the same thing. We struggled this year on a lot of things. Unfortunately it’s showing up on Sundays. We haven’t been able to perform well. For everybody, it’s super frustrating. 

“We want to do well. We’re striving to do better every weekend. It’s a tough sport. Any little thing that we drop the ball on, it creates a big impact. Just need to be heads up on Sunday and not give this f**ker [Palou] another win.”

It has not been a question of a lack of pace for Herta, as evidenced by seven top-five starts in 13 races. And should everything go smoothly execution wise, there is belief in the No.26 team that they can take a first victory since last year’s Nashville Superspeedway finale.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

One key lies in tyre management, with the Andretti squad having felt particularly confident on both the harder black primary tyre, which is the favoured race tyre. There is a little more of an element of the unknown surrounding the softer green alternate compound.

“There’s no reason not to be [confident],” Herta said. “We were extremely competitive on blacks. I felt like if we put on blacks, I could have been close to my [alternate] tyre time. I feel we’re even more competitive on blacks.

“How long you can run the softs for, that’s a big question mark. Is it going to be four laps? Is it going to be 20 laps? It’s really not sure yet. I think we have the ability to be fast on both but I’m glad it’s a harder compound tyre race because we’re really strong on those.”

Another question mark heading into the race is the impact of a heavy bump on the entry to Turn 3, which Team Penske’s Will Power remarked gave him a headache in opening practice. A new patch of asphalt was placed overnight from Friday to Saturday to try and alleviate its harshness but has received mixed responses.

Herta hopes it will invite more passing opportunities, which was a concern with the bump’s condition during Friday’s practice.

“It’s much better,” he said. “It was pretty brutal [on Friday]. I didn’t really mind it because I think it adds character and whatnot. But it was on the limit. It was very aggressive. You saw quite a few guys have mistakes because of it. 

“It’s a very difficult part of the track to be standing on the brakes like that and have the bump there. I thought IndyCar did a good job. I think there’s no problems at all with it. I think the patchwork they did was really spot on.”

Credit: Julia Bissessar

Palou did not share the same views as Herta - a possible indication of the Andretti cars’ efficiency over the bumps. The Spaniard himself feels as though Herta and teammate Kyle Kirkwood, who has won the last two street course races but made a mistake in qualifying confining him to a sixth-place start, have been in “another league” so far this weekend.

While the characteristics of the bump changed with its patchwork, Palou felt it was equally aggressive.

“It was not any smoother. You were still hitting very, very hard,” he said. “It was the same in a different way. It was as big. Because we’re going probably 180, 190 miles an hour, even a small bump, you feel it a lot. The car is as low as you’re ever going to be, then suddenly there’s that small bump, which today was just like in a different direction. 

“[Friday] was a dip, today it’s like you’re going over. We understand it’s a street. There’s nothing you can do. I honestly prefer this than to pave street courses for us. They tried. Didn’t work. It’s fine.”

Having never qualified better than 15th in Toronto, albeit never finishing worse than sixth in the race, Palou starts IndyCar’s Canadian round from the front row for the first time. It has not been the most straightforward weekend but he has found a sweet spot with his car.

“We improved quite a bit from what we had here in the past. I’m a lot more comfortable,” Palou said. “From [Friday], we changed a lot more stuff, trying to find a bit more confidence in the car, a little bit more grip. We made huge changes. They were a lot better.”

It is set for a grandstand start on Sunday, with a seven-time race winner on the year in pursuit of a driver bidding to end a 12-race winless run in a season where he has seen his teammate win three times.