Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto: Pato O’Ward wins first Canadian title
Global News
Mexico's Pato O'Ward finally won the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto on Sunday, giving the the seven-year veteran his first victory in Canada.
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 – 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 the 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.”
Pole sitter Colton Herta of the United States leads the field into Turn 1 at the start of the 2025 Honda Indy Toronto in Toronto, on Sunday, July 20, 2025. The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn
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.
