Qualifying Report: Honda Indy Toronto

TORONTO (July 16, 2022) -- Well you'll have days like this in racing.

Toronto native Dalton Kellett, making his hometown debut in an Indy car, never got out of his pit box in the qualifying session due to a fuel system problem. He never posted a lap time. He will start 23rd in the No. 4 K-Line Insulators USA Chevrolet. The team replaced the entire fuel system after qualifying to avoid any issues in tomorrow's Honda Indy Toronto.

“So definitely a tough session for us," said Kellett who will have over 200 guests at the race this weekend. "Didn’t really get out of the pit box; looks like we had a failure somewhere in the fuel delivery system. One of the high-pressure pumps from the collector in the fuel cell wasn't pumping fuel to the rail for our Chevy V6, so we weren’t able to get power so that was basically it. It is disappointing for us for the hometown race, obviously wanted a good qualifying performance to start further up on the grid and make our lives a little easier for Sunday. But obviously that wasn’t to be. We’ll just have to figure out what went wrong and make everything right for tomorrow. We’ll see what we have in warmup and go out and have a good race.”

Starting 24th alongside Kellett will be his teammate Kyle Kirkwood in the No. 14 Sexton Properties Chevrolet. Kirkwood's session was red-flagged about seven minutes into the session due to Alex Palou stopping on track. By the time his car was cleared from the track, the time had run out so officials gave the drivers one timed lap. Kirkwood was trying to make the most of it when he brushed the wall in Turn 6 and damaged his car enough that it spun around when he tried to go through Turn 8. He spun, hit the tire barrier and brought out the red flag. The penalty for causing a red flag is to lose your two quickest laps.

"Unfortunately, we didn't transfer to the Fast 12 today," a dejected Kirkwood said. "We had just one lap to do it and I unfortunately brushed the wall out of Turn 6, which caused a rear left toe link to break and then we went to Turn 8 with the tire pointing in the wrong direction. So super unfortunate, but we know we have fast car, we were quick early on — on both sets of tires— we just didn't get the lap there at the end."

Colton Herta won the pole to become the first two-time pole winner of the season. Rounding out the Firestone Fast Six were: Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi, David Malukas and Scott McLaughlin.

The teams have a 30-minute warmup in the morning before the 85-lap Honda Indy Toronto gets underway tomorrow afternoon. The race will be streamed live on Peacock Premium starting at 3 p.m.