IndyCar, Hinchcliffe headed to Toronto
It’s been almost three weeks since Alexander Rossi’s dominant victory at Road America, and the NTT IndyCar Series is back this weekend as it heads to the streets of Toronto.
The championship picture is coming into focus as the drivers put one of the longest breaks of the season behind them and head to Canada.
Here are the three biggest storylines looking ahead to Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto.
Hinchcliffe heads home
James Hinchcliffe has always raced well in Toronto. In the past three seasons, the Toronto native has finished no worse than fourth and had podium finishes in 2016 and ’17.
He’s never won the race, but he’s looking for a good result.
“I’m obviously thrilled to be headed back to Toronto for the next race,” Hinchcliffe said in a news release. “This event made me fall in love with IndyCar when I was a kid, and getting to go back there every year is such a privilege.
“The No. 5 Arrow team has had a great pace for several races in a row, we just need the end result to come together, and I can’t think of a better place for that to happen than Toronto.”
Coming off a seventh-place finish at Road America, Hinchcliffe is ninth in the points standings. He has registered five top-10 results this season but has yet to crack the top five, finishing sixth at St. Petersburg and Barber.
“We’ve had podiums and top-fives there recently, but we need to make that jump to the top step,” he said.
Championship race tightens
In 10 races this season, six drivers have registered wins. The record for most winners in an IndyCar season is 11.
Despite the parity among first-place finishers, the championship race is largely a two-man race between Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden (402 points) and Alexander Rossi of Andretti Autosport (395), who’ve combined for five of the 10 wins.
Rossi climbed within seven points of the leader after scoring 53 points in his 28-plus-second victory at Road America.
“Toronto is one of the most exciting races of the season for us due to the energy of the crowd and the city,” Rossi said. “This weekend kicks off a threeweek stretch of critical races, so the whole team and I will be needing to bring our ‘A’ game.”
Of this season’s wins among the front-runners, four have come on road courses. Newgarden won in St. Petersburg and at Belle Isle Park-1, while Rossi won at Long Beach and Road America.
Last season at Honda Indy Toronto, Newgarden won the pole but he and Rossi finished ninth and eighth, respectively. Newgarden won the race in 2017 en route to his series championship in his first season with Team Penske, which has won in Toronto nine times.
“It was nice to have a bit of a break to relax and work on a strategy for the remainder of the season that we all feel really good about,” Newgarden said. “We have been reviewing a lot of our data from last year’s race at Toronto and some things we’ve learned at road and street courses this year we’d like to try out.”
Wickens driving a lap
Robert Wickens is coming home in a big way – by getting back behind the wheel of a race car and onto a racetrack.
The Guelph, Ontario, native will be driving an Acura NSX during the parade lap before Sunday’s 85-lap race. It will be the first time he’s driven in public since his horrific crash at Pocono last season that left him with severe spinal cord injuries.
“I have some pretty exciting news to share with you,” Wickens said on social media Monday. “Probably just as exciting as when I shared my first steps. “I am getting back into a car.” Wickens will be driving with his fiancee, Karli Woods, in the passenger seat. He said it will be a “special moment” since she has been “my chauffeur for the last little while.”
The car has modified hand controls that were made by Arrow, the primary sponsor for Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.
In another social post Wednesday, Wickens said the hand controls were “fun to learn, and I feel like I picked it up really easily! As we all know, Motorsports main purpose is to evolve the automotive industry, and in my particular circumstance, accessibility.”
Since his crash 11 months ago, Wickens has regularly posted to social media with updates on his rehabilitation.
At last year’s Honda Indy Toronto, Wickens climbed seven spots from his 10th-place starting position to grab his third of four podiums during his rookie season.
“I get to basically be pole position for the race — kinda — which is a blast. I’m so excited,” Wickens said. “I can’t wait to get a helmet on and go around in an amazing car.”