NTT INDYCAR SERIES
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Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto – Streets Around Exhibition Place
Pre-Race Notes
Round 3 of 17 in the 2025 NTT INDYCAR SERIES
DATE: July 18-20, 2025
PRACTICE BROADCAST: Live on FS2 on Friday from 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. ET, on Saturday from 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. on FS1 and Sunday from 8:30 – 9:00 a.m. ET on FS1. Also live on the INDYCAR Radio Network (IRN) and www.indycar.com (timing & scoring + live analysis).
QUALIFYING BROADCAST: Live on FS1, the IRN and www.indycar.com (timing & scoring + live analysis) from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. ET Saturday.
RACE BROADCAST: Live on FOX on Sunday, July 20 from 12:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET. And also on the IRN and Sirius XM INDYCAR Nation 218.
TRACK LAYOUT: 1.786-mile, 11-turn temporary street course
RACE LENGTH: 90 laps / 160.7481 miles – +5 laps over 2024
2024 WINNER: Colton Herta
2024 POLESITTER: Colton Herta (107.982 mph)
RAHAL’S BEST TORONTO START / FINISH: 2nd in 2017 / 4th in 2022; will be his 18th Indy car race here and 19th overall
RAHAL’S HIGHEST SERIES START/FINISH: 5 poles – Pole at St. Pete (street) 2009, Kansas (oval) 2009, Detroit Race 1 (street) 2017, IMS (road) 2023 August, Portland (road) / 6 wins – 1st in St. Pete in 2008, Fontana & Mid-Ohio 2015, Texas 2016, Detroit Race 1 & Race 2 2017
DEFRANCESCO’S BEST TORONTO START / FINISH: 12th / 18th – both in 2022; will be his third INDYCAR race here
DEFRANCESCO’S HIGHEST SERIES START / FINISH: 5th at the IMS road course (August 2023, 2025) / 11th at Indy 500 (2025)
FOSTER’S BEST TORONTO START / FINISH: First INDYCAR race here; 1st / 1st – both races of the 2022 USF Pro 2000 doubleheader
FOSTER’S BEST SERIES START / FINISH: Pole at Road America 2025 / 11th (Indy GP and Road America 2025)
RLL’S BEST START / FINISH AT TORONTO: 2 Poles (B. Rahal 1992; Lundgaard 2023) / 1 Win (Lundgaard 2023)
NEWS & NOTES:
RLL IN TORONTO – 1 WIN, 6 PODIUMS AND 2 POLES
The 2025 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto will mark the 25th year of Indy car racing for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) here. The team also competed in the Atlantic Series races here in 2003 and 2004. The team won in 2023 with Christian Lundgaard, earned four second place finishes (Rahal 1992, 1994, 1995; Michel Jourdain Jr. 2003), and finished third in 1996 (B. Rahal). In total, the team has earned SIX podiums (3rd – Rahal 1996), 11 top-five’s and 24 top-10 finishes at the track. RLL’s best start is pole in 1992 by Bobby Rahal and 2023 by Christian Lundgaard. Prior to the 2025 event, the team prepared a total of 44 Indy car entries for drivers Bobby Rahal (1992-98), Mike Groff (1994), Raul Boesel (1995), Bryan Herta (1996-99), Max Papis (1999-2001), Jimmy Vasser (2002), Michel Jourdain Jr. (2002-03), Takuma Sato (2012, 2018-19), Graham Rahal (2013 x 2; 2014 x2; 2015-2019, ’22-24), James Jakes (2013 x 2), Luca Filippi (2014 x2), Christian Lundgaard (’22-24), Jack Harvey (’22-23) and Pietro Fittipaldi (2024). RLL also prepared three Toyota Atlantic entries (Danica Patrick 2003-2004; Chris Festa 2004, The No. 15 United Rentals entry for Graham Rahal, the No. 30 HUB International entry for Devlin DeFrancesco and No. 45 Droplight entry for Louis Foster will bring the Indy car total to 47 in 2025.
GRAHAM RAHAL AT TORONTO
The 2025 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto will be Graham Rahal’s 18th Indy car race here and 19th overall (Atlantic 2006) here. In 17 Indy car races, his best start of second came in 2017 with RLL and best finish of fourth came in 2022. He has three, top-five starts and eight, top-10 finishes. In 2024, he started eighth and dropped to ninth after being passed by Power on the opening lap. On Lap 25/85, he reported an issue with his steering wheel that would go blank intermittently. The device also controls shifting. The team pit early to change steering wheels but the problem persisted. He was 15th when the red flag was brought out and moved up to 13th after cars were penalized. Once the race resumed, he moved up to 10th and held the position until the checkered flag. In 2023, wet conditions in qualifying led to contact and derailed the top starting spot Rahal was on target for according to computer data, but he started 27th after losing his two fastest laps as a penalty for bringing out the red flag after hitting the wall. In the race, he avoided an opening lap crash and drove through a runoff area to avoid an impassable track to catch up to the field. Persistence paid off and he climbed to a ninth-place finish. Full results area available upon request. Rahal has qualified in the Fast Six for three of the past four road/street course races and is aiming to continue that in Toronto.
“The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto is certainly a great event, and one that I have enjoyed over the years. I’m hoping we can have a strong performance. Qualifying for us has been better on road and street courses so hopefully we can keep that rolling in Toronto and put it all together. It’s important for us to have a solid finish. We have shown the potential, and we need some good finishes to get ourselves further up in the championship. It would be great to get a good finish for the United Rentals boys in Toronto.”
DEVLIN RETURNS HOME TO TORONTO
The 2025 Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto will mark DeFrancesco’s third INDYCAR race here. Of his two races in 2022 and 2023, his best start and finish came in his rookie season in 2022 when he qualified 12th and finished 18th. The Toronto native was born 15 weeks premature and spent the first four months of his life in an incubator at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital. He was issued last rites on multiple occasions in the event he didn’t survive. Now he and his family regularly support the hospital. DeFrancesco is looking forward to returning to the track in the No. 30 HUB International Honda after a strong performance by the team on the streets of Detroit where he was -0.008 of a second from transferring to Round 2 in qualifying.
“I love Toronto. I got my first Fast-12 in 2022 (qualified 12th) and definitely have good memories there. I always look forward to going back home and especially for the race. I think we can run well there. We found a few things, performance-wise on the Detroit street course that have helped us quite a bit so that is an avenue we will follow on the No. 30 HUB International car.
“It’s a tricky little place that is bumpy and unforgiving but with all the concrete patches there, you have to make sure you get your (car) rotation done before you get to the concrete because if not, it can definitely turn into a two-problem race car. That’s going to be the name of the game. This team has been very strong in Toronto the last couple of years and got a win with the 45 car in 2023 and were fast in 2024 with the hybrid weight so we should be fast there. A lot of my family will be coming to the race. I’m looking forward to it.”
FOSTER IS TWO FOR TWO IN TORONTO
Foster has competed on the streets of Toronto two times in the USF Pro 2000 series, both in 2022. In the doubleheader, Foster won both poles, set the fastest lap in both races and won both races en route to the championship in his rookie season. He has been in the Firestone Fast Six shootout three times in eight opportunities and has netted his first series pole at Road America (road), a third place start at the grand prix at IMS and sixth at Mid-Ohio. He is looking forward to continuing the team’s road/street course performance north of the border.
“I raced in Toronto in 2022 in the USF Pro 2000 series where I won both races and put it on pole for both races so I had a great experience my last time there. I missed driving that track for sure, it’s a fun street circuit. It’s a shame INDY NXT doesn’t race there so I haven’t been able to experience the track and any updates they have made to the track the last two years but I’m looking forward to getting back onto it. I really enjoy it.
“All of the track is pretty difficult but probably the most challenging area is the pit lane; it’s a very weird one that curves left and right and will definitely be quite difficult to navigate and find your pit box and have smooth pit lane exchanges during the race. Generally, it’s quite a bumpy circuit, it’s definitely one of the bumpiest ones we go to, up there with Detroit but it’s a lot of fun either way.
“I love Canada, I think it’s a great country. I enjoy being in Toronto; it’s a cool city and one of my favorites that we go to on the calendar like Nashville or Los Angeles. I have pretty high hopes for the weekend. I think we’re going to have a good result. Obviously, the team has won there in the past a couple of years ago, so we know how to get it done there. I’ve been kind of coming into my own on the street circuits and I definitely feel like we have a good result on the horizon. We were on pace for an eighth-place result in Detroit until we had a mechanical failure so I think we should have a good weekend.”
POINTS BATTLE AFTER 13 OF 18 RACES
Heading into Round 14 of 17 at the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto, Rahal is in 19th place in the point standings with a total of 169. Foster is 22nd with 150 and DeFrancesco is 25th with 115. Robert Schwartzman trails Foster by five points in the Rookie of the Year standings, 150-145, with five races to go.
