Ganassi still confident of challenging Penske in qualifying

The reigning champion, whose surge to the third of his four titles started by winning both rounds of the double-header at Toronto in 2013, finished the day fourth fastest behind three Team Penske cars.

However, he believes he can close the 0.36sec gap to today’s fastest driver, championship leader Simon Pagenaud.

He declared: "It was a good start to the weekend for Team Target. We made some good adjustments to the car in the first practice session and were just really adapting to the changes in the track layout.

“P4 in the second session isn't terrible but I think we can improve tomorrow and have a good run in qualifying. This is one of my favorite places we race, and the fans are great and really appreciate motor racing."

Teammate Tony Kanaan spent the day learning the track but also trying to get his #10 car’s Chevrolet engine to 2500 miles, so he can have a fresh unit for qualifying. He was stymied, however, by the two practice sessions being only 45 minutes long and the second one disrupted by red flags.

“We need to do 19 more laps to mileage this engine out and get it changed for qualifying tomorrow,” he said. “It was one of those days where you just have to get a lot of laps in without many tires, so you're just kind of driving around to get there.

“We only got one fast lap and I hit traffic, but still we ended up in the top seven so I think we're going to be good for tomorrow.”

Charlie Kimball, who scored his first IndyCar podium finish here at Toronto four years ago, was inevitably less content after his shunt in the second session. He, like Penske’s Juan Montoya mere minutes earlier, snagged the inside wall, which sent him slapping the outside wall coming onto the pitstraight, and then rebounded over to the pitwall.

“I know the Novo Nordisk guys will fix it - I have the utmost confidence in the #83 team. I think the car is pretty good - we'll obviously learn a little bit from what the No. 9 and the No. 10 did and talk to the #8 [Max Chilton] car and see if we can all learn from each other."

Although an Indy Lights graduate, Chilton did not compete at Toronto last year, and today ended up at the bottom of the time sheets in both sessions. However, he closed down the gap to the session pacesetter from 2.5 to 1.5sec.