Penske drivers fast but still wrestling with setups

Team Penske-Chevrolet’s Will Power has won at Toronto three times – 2007 (Walker Racing), 2010 and 2016 – but admitted there was no common theme to his victories, the first of which came in the wet.

“It's just that I've been here enough times to have racked up some wins really," he shrugged. "It's not anything special I do around here. None of the wins were the same, and I did not do the same thing or the same setup for each of them. Different every year. You've just got to really roll with the punches and be on your toes.

“The red tires aren't that different from the blacks speed-wise. Only a quarter of a second maybe, three tenths. But yeah, it's a tough track to get the balance right. The grip levels are so different all the way around. You've got some bumpy areas with no grip and bumpy areas with grip, and then completely smooth areas. It's very tough to get it all right.

“Turn 9 in particular goes from a lot of grip to absolutely nothing.”

Power said that the bumps on the 1.786-mile track are also in inconvenient places, such as the ideal racing line, occasionally forcing avoidance. 

“In Turn 1, depending on the wind direction, you have to avoid the bumps at times," he explained. "Today you've got a tailwind, so you don't bottom as hard. I'm not sure anyone else picked that up in the paddock, but I noticed that if you've got a headwind you bottom-out harder, tailwind – not as much. I'm always looking, always looking."

Pagenaud, who looked like Penske’s main threat in this race last year until he (and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon) were wrongfooted strategy-wise by a full-course caution, said he was happy with today’s progress but he was still chasing a strong setup for the softer-compound Firestone ‘reds’.

“The car has been phenomenal the whole day,” he said. “I feel very comfortable. This track is so much fun to drive on because it's different to other tracks. Here it's very low grip. You slide around in the corners. The Tarmac changes throughout the corner, and it's giving you a great challenge. I really enjoy that.

“Every corner is different. You need to change your driving, corners to corners. It's not boring, I can tell you that.

“The difficult part from now on is to find the magic setup on the car for the red tires, and like Will said, there's quite a bit of a difference on the balance from the black tires to the reds. We'll see. I think we're okay, but I think that's going to be the tough part.”

Pagenaud said the NASCAR Pinty’s Series rubber [Goodyear] laid down on track during its qualifying session, held after IndyCar’s second practice today, would help with overall grip tomorrow but would throw in another variable when chasing balance.

“I think any kind of rubber on the track would be good for grip to be honest,” he said. “It's just going to change the balance. Which way it's going to go? I don't know, we never run with them, so it's very difficult to know which way the car is going to go.

“When we're after Indy Lights [Cooper tires], we kind of know now which way it's going, but behind these guys we have no idea.

“So that’s going to add a twist again to practice and qualifying tomorrow. There's a lot of times you just need to drive and adjust to it yourself. It's not always easy in one lap.”