Castroneves tops Toronto opening practice - MotorSportsTalk

Not even a week after his win Sunday at Iowa Speedway, Helio Castroneves carried the early momentum in to lead opening practice for the Verizon IndyCar Series’ Honda Indy Toronto (Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, CNBC).

The driver of the No. 3 Hitachi Team Penske Chevrolet tackled the 1.786-mile Exhibition Place street circuit at 1:01.1211.

It was nearly four tenths clear of teammate Josef Newgarden in second and over four tenths clear of a third Penske driver, defending series champion Simon Pagenaud, in third.

Scott Dixon was top Honda in fourth ahead of Graham Rahal to complete the top five.

In his first street course session in IndyCar since this race in June two years ago, Sebastian Saavedra took over the No. 7 Honda for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and was 2.8 seconds off Castroneves, and 2.1 off teammate James Hinchcliffe in seventh. Hinchcliffe was just behind Ed Carpenter Racing’s Spencer Pigot, a solid sixth.

A couple drivers ran into the runoffs but there were no major incidents in the session. The only red flag came for debris from a banner in Turn 1 coming loose and onto the race surface.

Elsewhere, Jake Query tracked down a couple interesting interviews for the Advance Auto Parts IndyCar Radio Network.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team manager Taylor Kiel didn’t comment on the details of the change from Mikhail Aleshin to Saavedra this weekend and said the car’s driver status for the rest of the year is still to be determined.

Meanwhile Marco Andretti, who was sidelined in the session early with an oil pump issues, addressed Query’s question about sports car rumors for him thusly: “That’s just the journalists doing as bad of a job as I’m doing this year. I’m not going anywhere.”

The second 45-minute practice of the day runs from 2:15 to 3 p.m. ET. Times are below.

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”