Hinchcliffe pinning Indianapolis 500 hopes to last-row shootout today
INDIANAPOLIS — James Hinchcliffe spent 12 months plotting his Indianapolis 500 comeback, but the final chapter has been put on hold for at least one more day — possibly another year.
Hinchcliffe crashed during his first qualifying attempt Saturday and then couldn’t find enough speed in his backup to bump his way into the protected top 30 starting positions for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”
His final shot to make the 33-driver field is Sunday when six drivers, including two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso, will go for three spots in the “Last Row Shootout.”
“Luckily we’ve got a chance,” Hinchcliffe said. “With the amount of time we had to get this thing together, there are some little tricks of the trade where I think we can find some speed. It’s weird to think this isn’t actually the worst qualifying day we’ve had here.”
That was last year when he was surprisingly bumped out of the 33-car starting field and missed the race.
Hinchcliffe and his team huddled after last year’s miss to figure out what went wrong and made what they thought were the necessary contingency plans to avoid a similar fate this year. So following the crash, the Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports crew got right to work.
Rather than repair the No. 5 car that suddenly snapped around and slammed hard into the outside wall, the team pulled out the backup car and installed a new engine — starting even before Hinchcliffe had climbed out of the car and gone the medical center to be cleared to drive.