Colton Herta led the first practice for Ontario Honda dealers Indy Toronto. Indycar used the split format that debuted in St. Pete, a 45 minute practice for all cars followed by two 10 minute session, one each for half of the field.

During the main session, Will Power and Agustin Canapino spun and stalled but were able to refire their cars and kept going.

In group two of the mini rounds Alexander Rossi hit the re barrier hard on the right front. He was seen and released in the care center, but his right thumb is broken, and Rossi will not drive the rest of the weekend.

Linus Lundqvist plowed into the same barrier with about three minutes left in practice. Lundqvist is fine, but the car suffered significant damage. The session did not resume.

The fortunate thing for Rossi is that the next race is four weeks away thanks to NBC’s Olympic coverage. I will have some thoughts on that during the break.

“Overall, the car was really nice,” said Herta, who has a pair of top-three finishes on street circuits this season and won the pole for last month’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear. “(It) feels like the same car that we brought last two years, which we’ve had podium results. And so hopefully that bodes well for us.”

Notes

Could this be the weekend Herta finally catches a break? It seems as if bad luck is a constant Andretti global crew member.

Marcus Ericsson had an engine issue during practice.

Track management did a great job cleaning up the backstretch after the flooding earlier in the week.

I like the battery icon on NBC’s telemetry much more than the green lightning bolt and red arrow. Maybe they could just show the battery icon all the time. It’s not like when the cars run out of battery they are done, like Formula E.

Results

The next practice is at 10 am Eastern tomorrow on Peacock, with qualifying at 2:45 pm.