See how crashes and on-track incidents defined the 2025 Toronto Indy

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2 days ago

Running around the challenging 1.786-mile Exhibition Place street circuit, the IndyCar field saw a race filled with attrition and strategy-shifting cautions in the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto.
It didn't even take to the green flag for the weekend to claim its first victim. Santino Ferrucci's No. 14 Chevrolet (above) snapped loose during the morning warmup and sent him into the turn 7 wall, knocking the AJ Foyt Racing star out without enough time for his team to repair the car.
That would prove to be an omen for the race itself.
Just two circuits into the 90-lap event, Scott McLaughlin was one of a handful of drivers to pit and get off the struggling alternative tire for the race. But what began as a promising strategy devolved in an instant when he lost a wheel on his up-to-speed lap with primary tires.
'The wheel nut came off,' a disappointed McLaughlin said while watching the replay. 'It's frustrating. We're all in this together. It's hard right now.'
Ed Carpenter Racing teammates Christian Rasmussen and Alexander Rossi were the next ones to face misfortune. Rasmussen was first up, getting the worst of contact with Will Power before sliding into the outside wall and spinning around with a broken front wing and flat right-rear tire.
Despite falling two laps down, Rasmussen continued on and salvaged a top-20 finish with the attrition in Sunday's race. Rossi was less fortunate. The 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner was caught by surprise when what seemed like slight contact with the outside wall completely destroyed his car.
The Californian had the smallest mistake of the day, but he did so at the wrong place. A small jut in the wall exacerbated what could otherwise have been a minimal shunt.
'It wasn't really even a snap, I just kind of tracked out a little too wide and destroyed the rear of the car,' Rossi said afterward. 'I'm still trying to process it, because I've never seen that amount of damage (with that little contact. … Literally the suspension is cut and the gearbox is pulled apart.'
'I'm pretty speechless with the penalty for the transgression,' he later added.
The chaos only ramped up from there. Onlookers had just come to terms with Rossi's crash when a restart pileup took out another Indy 500 winner. Jacob Abel was caught on the outside of an opportunistic Louis Foster pass when he appeared to misjudge the corner and turn into Foster's No. 45 Honda.
That sent a slowed Abel up the track and into Josef Newgarden, triggering a crash that would end with Abel's No. 51 Honda atop Newgarden's No. 2 Chevrolet and both drivers out of the race. Devlin DeFrancesco spun behind the pair and ended up just one spot ahead of them at race's end.
Here's the entirety of Newgarden's post-race interview: 'Wrong place, wrong time.'
Abel, Newgarden, Rossi, McLaughlin and Ferrucci were all out of the race in the opening 36 laps, slotting 23rd through 27th. DeFrancesco ended up just ahead of them in 22nd, with Foster forced to pit road by additional contact later on that relegated him to 21st.
Others saw additional turmoil, but continued on for lead-lap finishes. Power ended up against the outside wall after a restart scrap with race winner Pato O'Ward, but backed up and rebounded to 11th. Kyle Kirkwood hoped to continue a recent surge of street circuit dominance, but wound up sixth after his day was derailed by a pit road spin at the hands of Marcus Armstrong.
Christian Rasmussen, Ed Carpenter Racing
Of those that avoided contact, the frequent cautions still served as a significant shakeup for the race. They allowed O'Ward and others that stopped early to get off alternate tires the chance to leap ahead of the field and battle for the win in primary tires, with most three-stopping the event while Rinus VeeKay and Kyffin Simpson rode a two-stop strategy to podium finishes.
Between all the accidents, the opening half of the race saw five drivers out of the race and only 19 of 27 remaining on the lead lap. The event's second half nearly played out without another caution, but finally saw the field slowed again when Felix Rosenqvist lost the rear of his No. 60 Honda and collected Nolan Siegel with three to go.
By then, the race had already been decided up front - and the damage had already been done to those caught out by the early attrition.
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