Winners and Losers: Indy Toronto

Written by Morgan Holiday

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Pato O’Ward took his second IndyCar win of the year on the streets of Toronto this past weekend.

DIVEBOMB takes a look at some of the big winners and losers from the weekend.

Winner - Kyffin Simpson

2025 has been a slow uphill battle for Simpson and his maiden podium this past weekend is a stunning representation of the work he has put in.

After finishing 21st in the standings with Chip Ganassi Racing in his rookie season, Simpson scored his first top 10 finish in just the third race of his second year. A few races later, he picked up his first top five in Detroit. In Mid-Ohio, he scored a career-best qualifying result of third, and ran high up in the race before eventually finishing 10th.

In Toronto, Simpson started down in 14th after missing out on the Fast 12, but chaos in Sunday’s race allowed him and his team to take advantage and secure a good result. Instead of coming into the pits during the first caution of the race like many of his competitors, Simpson and his crew opted to stay out. He ended up on the favorable two-stop strategy and came home in third place behind O’Ward and Rinus VeeKay.

For Simpson, who has been working hard this year to improve, this podium is indicative of his upward momentum and a great reward for his efforts. He also picked up the biggest mover of the day award, having made up 11 positions to secure third place.

Winner - Rinus VeeKay

Credit: Julia Bissessar

Another driver very excited to be on the podium in Toronto was Dale Coyne Racing’s Rinus VeeKay.

VeeKay’s last IndyCar podium was a third place at Barber Motorsports Park in 2022 with Ed Carpenter Racing. After spending five seasons with the team, he was replaced for 2025 and made the switch instead to DCR.

While it’s been an uphill battle for VeeKay at a new team, he’s scored seven top 10 results this year, one of them being this weekend when he secured the team’s first podium since 2023.

The Dutch driver qualified ninth on Saturday and improved on a chaotic Sunday to take second place and secure his fourth career IndyCar podium.

With top-level seats like a spot at Team Penske potentially available for next season, this result could not have come at a better time for a driver like VeeKay looking to prove his worth to the other teams on the grid.

Winner - PREMA Racing

Credit: Dominic Loyer

PREMA Racing joined the IndyCar grid this season and has struggled monumentally with getting up to speed in the competitive series. But in the moments when they shine, they really do shine.

PREMA’s first big surprise moment of the year came at the Indianapolis 500, when rookie Robert Shwartzman took pole position. But the actual race was a disappointment for the team, as Shwartzman finished 26th and his teammate Callum Ilott finished the race in 33rd.

Shwartzman has since secured two top 10 finishes (both on oval tracks), but a top 10 finish with PREMA  had evaded Ilott until this weekend.

On Saturday in Toronto, Ilott finished fourth in Group 1 of qualifying, securing a spot in the Fast 12. He would ultimately be disappointed on Saturday after he couldn’t get a good lap in during the Fast 12 which put him 12th for the race start.

In the race, he didn’t just hold on, he gained three places to finish in eighth place, taking his first top 10 result with PREMA and securing the team’s third top 10 of the year.

Shwartzman had a more typical weekend, qualifying 20th and finishing 16th. Still, his result for the weekend has him tied with Louis Foster for the lead of the Rookie of the Year race, an award he’s putting up a good fight for. PREMA’s first IndyCar season has been full of ups and downs, and they’ll be happy that this weekend was one of the higher ups of the year so far.

Loser - Team Penske (again)

Credit: Julia Bissessar

The Toronto weekend was once again a majorly disappointing weekend for one of IndyCar’s biggest teams, as all three Penske drivers were involved in incidents in the early stages of the race.

Will Power had the best and most uneventful weekend of the three, qualifying fourth and only getting caught up with Christian Rasmussen with minimal damage in the race. He was able to come back through the field to an 11th place finish. It wasn’t a good weekend by any means for the Australian driver, but at least he finished the race.

His teammates, Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden, were not so lucky. McLaughlin, starting from 15th, made it two laps before an issue with his left rear wheel nut left him without a tyre and in the wall. Toronto marked his second consecutive early DNF after Iowa, so it was yet another tough result for him.

Newgarden started down in 18th, and made it 36 laps before Jacob Abel hit the wall right after a restart and he was caught up in the incident, his car actually getting stuck under Abel’s. 

Team Penske’s luck has been so bad this season that it’s no shock at this point to see all three drivers caught up with issues and down at the bottom of the field. Their dismal season continues to get even more dismal every race weekend.

Loser - Andretti Global

Credit: Dominic Loyer

Toronto is Andretti Global’s track, the team historically running well here and coming this year off the back of a 1-2 finish last season. Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood were easily the favourites for this weekend, Kirkwood chasing his fourth race win of the year and Herta chasing his fourth.

And it was Herta who qualified on pole position on Saturday, easily taking the top starting spot for Sunday’s race. Kirkwood was unable to get a good lap in during the final session of qualifying and started sixth as a result. Andretti’s third driver, Marcus Ericsson, qualified just outside the top six in eighth.

Herta led from the start and kept the lead in the early laps, as Kirkwood jumped up to third. But strategy didn’t work in their favour, and in the resulting cautions and pitstops, Herta slipped out of the lead as Álex Palou and Scott Dixon took over the race.

Kirkwood lost any chance he had of a big improvement after taking a penalty for being out of place at the start of the race and then getting tagged by Marcus Armstrong in pit lane and spinning as he headed into his pit box.

While O’Ward skipped through to the race win, Herta was unable to get back up to the podium positions and finished in fourth. Ericsson and Kirkwood finished right behind him in fifth and sixth.

While typically, making up half of the top six would be a great result for the Andretti team, it’s a major disappointment based on what everyone expected from them coming into the weekend and they’ll be thinking of what they could have accomplished if things had gone a little differently. 

Loser - Santino Ferrucci

After a very good run of form from Indianapolis to Road America, Ferrucci’s luck seems to be running out. The past few weekends he’s been caught up in incidents both on and off the track that have soured the upwards direction his season was going in.

He qualified 23rd in Toronto, seven places behind his teammate David Malukas. Then on Sunday in the final minutes of the morning warmup, Ferrucci crashed hard going into Turn 7. While he was fortunately okay except for a minor hand injury, the team was unable to make repairs to his car in the three hours before the race start, and he was forced to withdraw from the race.

Ferrucci now sits 12th in the IndyCar standings, two places below his teammate Malukas. With just a few races left in the season, he’s running out of time to turn the final part of his year around and this weekend will not have helped his cause at all.