Marcus Ericsson had not visited Victory Lane in 63 races. Sunday in Markham, Ontario, he made up for it emphatically, leading 21 laps and setting the fastest lap of the race to win the inaugural Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham. Romain Grosjean crossed second for Dale Coyne Racing, and Ericsson’s Andretti Global teammate Will Power, who started dead last, clawed his way to third. Honda swept not just the podium but the top four finishers, with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou completing the 1-2-3-4.
It is Ericsson’s fifth career NTT INDYCAR SERIES win and his first since St. Petersburg in 2023, a drought that stretched across his move to Andretti Global in 2024. The win also snapped a frustrating string for a driver who had every reason to expect more from a frontrunning program.
Grosjean’s result was the more tactically intricate one. Starting from a strong qualifying position, the Frenchman led a race-high 28 laps around the brand-new Markham street circuit before a significant fuel-save effort in the final stint dropped him behind Ericsson. His Dale Coyne Racing team chose an aggressive strategy, and Honda supplied the precise fuel consumption targets needed to make it work. Second is Grosjean’s first podium of 2026.
Power’s afternoon was a study in attrition management on a circuit that proved brutally hard on machinery. Six cautions flew during the race, four cars were knocked off course by contact, and 11 of the 25 starters did not finish. Starting last on a street circuit is ordinarily a sentence to a points-scoring position in the teens. Power drove to third anyway, collecting his fourth podium of the year with Andretti Honda.
Polesitter Louis Foster led a race-high 32 laps and appeared headed for his first career IndyCar win before an incident on lap 43 ended his day prematurely. Foster’s exit was one of several that reshaped the running order in the race’s second half.
Honda’s numbers from Sunday are striking. Its cars led all but eight laps of the entire race. The manufacturer’s title fight against Chevrolet now stands at 1,225 points to 1,056, a gap Honda will carry into the Freedom 250 on the streets of Washington, D.C., scheduled for August 22-23. Sunday was also Honda’s fifth podium sweep of 2026, following 1-2-3 finishes at Arlington, Long Beach, Detroit, and Portland. Four of those five sweeps have come on street circuits.
Palou, meanwhile, did the quiet math correctly. Starting 11th, he drove to fourth without incident on a day when his closest championship rivals absorbed significant damage. He leaves Canada with a 133-point lead and four races remaining. For a driver who has already won four series titles, running a controlled fourth on a chaotic afternoon in a new city looks less like a conservative choice and more like the calculation of someone who has already solved the points problem.
The Markham event itself replaces Toronto’s Exhibition Place race, which had been part of the IndyCar calendar since 1986. Whether a brand-new street circuit on its first outing delivers a race worthy of that legacy is always an open question. Sunday’s chaos, attrition rate, and final-lap drama suggest the circuit earned its place on the schedule faster than most.
Four races left, 133 points in hand, and Palou probably still has to go out and win one of them before this is officially over. But right now, it’s Honda’s championship to give away.
Source: Honda. Images courtesy of Honda.
