GOING ’YARD
Canadian Hinchcliffe reveals why this could be his best Indy 500 — two years after nearly losing his life at the Brickyard.
In the five Indianapolis 500s that James Hinchcliffe has raced in to date, his best finish was sixth in 2014.
And in those five races, the Oakville driver has started near the front of the 33-car field. He went off second twice, and a year ago he was on the pole. It hasn’t done him much good.
The 101st edition of what’s known as The Greatest Spectacle in Racing will get the green flag around noon Sunday and Hinchcliffe, after qualifying 17th, will be right in the middle of the swarm of cars heading for the first turn.
Hinchcliffe — the winner of five career races in the Verizon Indy Car Series, including this season’s Long Beach Grand Prix — thinks this might very well turn out to be his best shot at winning.
“I had a pretty good chance last year, when I started up front and finished seventh,” he told the Star. “With what we learned last year, as a team and me as a driver, I’d say it’s going to give me an advantage . . .
“The big lesson was in 2014 when Ryan (Hunter-Reay) had the slowest of all the Andretti Autosport team cars. He was struggling and it was kind of a head-scratching situation and he qualified 17th, as I have this year.
“But when I was around him in the group runs at the end of each day, his car was really strong in traffic and I watched — I started up front that year — and I watched as the race progressed. And suddenly that yellow car of his was right in my mirrors and he was running for the front. He ultimately wound up winning the race.
“So, I’ve seen this internally from my own team that you don’t need to be the fastest car or to qualify first to win this race.”
Although Canadian racing fans will be particularly interested in Hinchcliffe, they will also be watching the progress of Formula One star Fernando Alonso, who will start fifth on Sunday. Alonso, a two-time world champion who opted to skip Sunday’s Grand Prix of Monaco, said last autumn that he wanted to do Indianapolis as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans before he retired.
Scott Dixon, driving for Chip Ganassi Racing, will start from pole Sunday — his qualifying speed of 232.164 miles an hour was the fastest in years) — and he will be joined on the front row by Ed Carpenter and last year’s winner, Alexander Rossi.
Alonso will start from the middle of the second row and be flanked by former F1 driver Takuma Sato on his left and J.R. Hildebrand to his right.
It was no surprise that Alonso — a raw rookie when it comes to highspeed, oval racing — took to Indy cars the way a duck takes to water. When he arrived at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 3 for a private test session arranged by Andretti Autosport, which is fielding his car, his first laps were in the 200-m.p.h. range.
As he became more comfortable with driving at the Brickyard, team owner Michael Andretti “trimmed out” his car, essentially changing the aerodynamics so there was less downforce, and his speeds increased accordingly.
“It’s definitely a unique place,” Alonso told reporters. “The first lap was strange for me. The car — how it turns in the corner, how it rotates in the corner — was a little bit strange. But now I feel confident with the team.”
Hinchcliffe said it’s been interesting to watch Alonso adapt to Indy racing. “I mean, you keep an eye on all the rookies that will be running around in the traffic but he’s been taking to that really well. He’s caught on very quickly. There’s a lot of good drivers and a lot of good information on that team and they can go out and run together . . . I definitely think he’s going to be a factor.”
It was two years ago when Hinchcliffe nearly lost his life while practising for this race. He hit the wall and a piece of the suspension sliced through the chassis, and through him. He was rushed to hospital where doctors stopped the bleeding and stitched him up. He missed the rest of the 2015 season.
Last year he returned to the cockpit of his race car — entered by former driver Sam Schmidt in partnership with Canadian trucking company owner Ric Peterson of Calgary — but was largely feeling his way, with one exception.
His winning of the pole at Indy was as symbolic as they come, signalling his determination to succeed at racing once again. This year, he’s really back, and he figures it’s his year.
When Hinchliffe got his first crack at Indianapolis with Andretti — he’d been hired to replace Danica Patrick — the race started and he found his car almost undriveable. Many observers considered it a test of his abilities as a driver to keep the thing from crashing as well as a test of his mental toughness.
“I’ve had the benefit of a lot of situations here,” Hinchcliffe said. “All of that experience comes into play. That race, the car was terrible, we stayed out of trouble and near the end we were just outside the top 10 and we got a flat tire and had to pit and lost a lot of positions.
“But we were in the running for a top-10 finish with a car that was as bad as it was. It taught me a lot about patience and how many different things can happen in the race and if you can run your own race and stay out of trouble, you will be in the fight in the end.”
To win, whether it’s at Indianapolis, or later this year in Toronto, requires a total team effort. Hinchcliffe says he and his team have grown together.
“The victory in Long Beach this year was huge for the whole team,” he said. “We did a lot together last year and accomplished a lot of what we wanted to do but the one thing missing was Victory Lane. We came close, particularly in Texas, and had another couple of strong races. But we didn’t seal the deal, so to come back strongly in ’17, that was obviously goal No. 1. We had to show we could still do it and get back to Victory Lane. And it happened in Long Beach, of all places. It was a huge boost for everyone on the car.”
“I’ve had the benefit of a lot of situations here. All of that experience comes into play.” JAMES HINCHCLIFFE ON DRIVING AT THE BRICKYARD