Foster’s Track Record Pole and Palou’s Broken Streak Headline Markham IndyCar Qualifying

Louis Foster set a track record in Markham IndyCar Qualifying to take pole for the inaugural Ontario Honda Dealers Indy, the second pole of his career arriving on a lap he later admitted he drove angry. His 1:13.2383 left Christian Lundgaard four tenths back in second. Alex Palou’s afternoon went the other way entirely. The championship leader’s run of 30 consecutive top-ten starting positions ended in a double impact with the wall approaching Turn 10, the Ganassi driver dropping to twelfth. Saturday’s session was compressed into a single qualifying window before a car turned a wheel, the track build behind schedule. Three cars, Alexander Rossi, Christian Rasmussen and Marcus Armstrong, arrive at Sunday’s 90-lap race carrying six-position grid penalties for unapproved engine changes made after Portland. David Malukas, third in the championship, qualified seventh and carries none of it into round fourteen.

Key Points: Markham IndyCar Qualifying

• Foster sets a track record on his angry post-Fast 12 lap, taking his second career pole 0.4 seconds clear of Lundgaard
• Palou’s streak of 30 consecutive top-ten qualifying results ends in a double wall impact at Turn 10, dropping him to 12th
• Rossi, Rasmussen and Armstrong all handed six-position grid penalties for unapproved fifth engine changes made after Portland
• Saturday’s schedule was compressed into a single qualifying window after promoter Green Savoree Racing Promotions failed to complete the track build on time
• Malukas starts seventh with no penalty of his own, trailing Palou by 118 points in the championship
• Foster carries two new sets of Firestone reds into Sunday’s 90-lap race, one more than Lundgaard alongside him on the front row

Foster’s Anger-Fuelled Track Record

Foster went into the Firestone Fast Six still annoyed with himself. He’d scraped through Fast 12 by what he called a bee’s tail, a mistake he felt should never have been that close. He carried that frustration straight into the pole lap.

The 1:13.2383 stood as a track record on the new 2.1-mile, 12-turn temporary circuit, four tenths clear of Lundgaard. It’s his second career pole after Road America last year, and by his own account this one felt less like a surprise. He’d been third fastest in the morning practice and topped the afternoon session before qualifying even started. Team owner Bobby Rahal has his own history with new Ontario street events, having won the first race at Toronto’s Exhibition Place back in 1986.

Lundgaard Locks Down the Front Row

Lundgaard’s weekend had been a fight from the first session. He described Friday practice as 1.5 seconds off the pace, and Saturday as a struggle to read the car’s balance right through to qualifying. The front row arrived anyway.

Foster goes into Sunday with two new sets of Firestone’s preferred alternate compound. Lundgaard has one. Foster called it an advantage regardless, reasoning that the peak grip off a new set’s out-lap still tips things his way, even on a track where Lundgaard himself expects the alternates to run a full stint without falling off. On a circuit this tight, with the field starting on the back straight into a hairpin, Foster’s read is that clean air out front beats whatever’s behind him.

Palou’s Streak Ends at Turn 10

Palou’s run of 30 consecutive top-ten starting positions, a streak dating back to the final race of the 2024 season, ended in the second of Saturday’s three qualifying rounds. He lost the rear of the car approaching Turn 10, hit the wall on the right side, then ricocheted into the left-side wall for a second impact. The session was over for him there. He qualified 12th.

Palou still leads by 110 points over Andretti Global’s Kyle Kirkwood, who starts 15th. Twelfth on raw pace is already unfamiliar territory for Palou, although the grid penalties around him should improve his actual starting position before Sunday’s green flag.

A Delayed Build and Three Grid Penalties

The revised Saturday timetable was set before Foster or anyone else turned a competitive lap. INDYCAR confirmed on Friday that race promoter Green Savoree Racing Promotions hadn’t completed the Streets of Markham track build in time for the original schedule, forcing two practice sessions and a single qualifying window run in the traditional road-course knockout format into one compressed evening.

INDYCAR Officiating also confirmed six-position grid penalties on Friday for the Nos. 20 and 21 Ed Carpenter Racing entries of Alexander Rossi and Christian Rasmussen, and for Marcus Armstrong’s No. 66 Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian car, all for unapproved engine changes made following the Portland race on 9 August. The penalties stem from Rule 16.1.2.3.2, which governs when a fifth engine change-out earns manufacturer points, and are applied under Rule 16.1.6.1.2, the six-position penalty for road and street course events against nine at ovals. All three qualified inside the top 22 on raw pace and now serve the drop at Markham.

Markham Qualifying Classification

Coffee Corner Take

Markham’s first NTT INDYCAR SERIES weekend introduced itself with an apology. Fans turned up in numbers Boles called magnificent. The track wasn’t ready for them.

A delayed build compressed the whole day into one shot at pole, and it still produced a genuinely interesting picture. Foster was fastest when it counted, angry enough at himself from Fast 12 to find four tenths nobody else in the field had. Lundgaard starts alongside him with the front row secured and a tyre disadvantage already built in for Sunday, one fewer new set of alternates than the man he has to beat off the line.

Palou changes the story. Thirty straight top-ten qualifying results is a run that stops mattering until it stops, and Turn 10 stopped it. He still leads Kirkwood by 110 points, and the penalties around him should lift his actual starting position before Sunday’s green flag. But a championship leader finding the wall twice in one lap, on a circuit nobody in the field has raced before, is not the picture Ganassi wanted from round fourteen.

Rossi, Rasmussen and Armstrong all serve six-position drops for unapproved engine changes made after Portland. Combine that with the build delay and paperwork has written more of Markham’s opening weekend than the racing has. Sunday needs to put that right.