TORONTO — Mexico's Pato O'Ward has always enjoyed the sights and sounds of Toronto, it's just the IndyCar Series race around Exhibition Place he didn't like, struggling year after year on the street course.
O'Ward finally won the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto on Sunday, for the seven-year veteran's first victory in Canada. A pep talk from Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan to the crew the night before, some solid strategy, and a little bit of luck made the win happen.
"It's a big day. It's a very big day," said O'Ward at this post-race news conference. "It feels pretty special in a place that has arguably been one of the biggest headaches every single year that we come here."
Like most of the drivers in the 11-turn, 2.874-kilometre race, O’Ward started on a set of less-favourable alternate Firestone Firehawk tires. He had them switched out in his first pit stop just ahead of a Lap 3 caution.
That meant O'Ward only had to use the less-favourable set for the better part of two green-flag laps. Although that strategy forced him into a three-stop race, he was able to run the primary compound the rest of the way.
"It's a really good feeling that we didn't just nail the strategy and get lucky, but we also had to earn our win today," said O'Ward. "It wasn't given to us. We had the car to be able to do that."
Kanaan, the IndyCar Series champion in 2004 and the winner of the 2013 Indianapolis 500, said he was sick of the narrative that O'Ward and Arrow McLaren struggle in Toronto.
"It hasn't been historically a good weekend for us here, which I didn't want to hear that coming in here," said Kanaan. "I was never that type of person.
"As a team, we got together last night and I said, 'Let's change that.' (...) I don't want to believe that's why we won, but..."
Rinus VeeKay of the Netherlands finished second and Kyffin Simpson of the United States placed third. Defending champion Colton Herta, who started in pole position on Sunday, was closing in on Simpson with a handful of laps to go when a caution solidified the podium.
"Definitely the final part, looking forward, really trying to close the gap to Pato, it was really hard to close," said VeeKay. "I think the track didn't really allow many overtakes.
"All three of us were kind of hovering around the same pace, closing in, making the gap bigger at times. It wasn't very exciting at the end, but it was a lot of work in the car."
Although VeeKay felt there wasn't a lot of opportunities to overtake at the front of the pack, there were actually many passes in the 90-lap race around Toronto's downtown fairgrounds. There were 226 on-track passes (most in the event since 2014) and 201 passes for position (most since 2019).
Spain's Alex Palou, the overall standings leader, finished 12th on Sunday, losing significant ground to O'Ward in the points list. O'Ward entered the weekend trailing Palou by 129 points, but cut that to 99 points with four races left in the season.
"We need to make sure that we continue to have days like today, not just one but a few," said O'Ward. "Obviously, we're at a time in the championship where we're going to have to get a little bit more into the conversation of getting our elbows out because that's what I had to do today just to open the doors to having a chance to win this race.
"That's the only way we're even going to catch a whiff of making him sweat a little bit."
Toronto's Devlin DeFrancesco, the only Canadian on the grid, finished 22nd, completing 57 laps. His day was derailed when he had to take a lengthy pit stop to have his car repaired after taking some damage in an accident in the 37th lap.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2025.
John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press
