Hinchcliffe not expecting to run in Indianapolis 500

James Hinchcliffe watched the final day of Indianapolis 500 qualifying in street clothes.

He could be suiting up in one of those cars next Sunday. Perhaps Pippa Mann will join him.

As Schmidt Peterson Motorsports continued searching for a way to get Hinchcliffe into the race, the popular Canadian driver refused to lobby for a ride and acknowledged that he didn’t expect 33-car field.

“At this point, I believe I won’t,” he said. “I know there’s precedent for doing that, but at the end of the day, every single driver in this race earned their way in and it’s hard to knock someone out of that.”

The clearest path to make it in would be replacing teammate and Indyonly driver Jay Howard.

Hinchcliffe, SPM’s top driver, is fifth in the season standings and gaining to start in the no points in a doublepoints race would likely knock Hinchcliffe out of contention. Plus, his primary sponsor, Arrow Electronics, has its name on a massive temporary suite complex in the speedway’s first turn.

There was no immediate indication a move would take place, though.

One reason for the holdup: Rules prevent teams from making driver changes until qualifying ends because the penalty for such a decision would be to start from the back of the field.

Another possibility to get the two eliminated drivers, Hinchcliffe and Mann, on the starting grid vanished when Jay Frye, IndyCar’s president of competition and operations, told The Associated Press the field would not be expanded.

It was common practice for decades for more than 33 drivers to show up at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with many top names failing to make the biggest race in America.