HINCHCLIFFE BASKS IN LONG BEACH WIN
Canadian holds on after two restarts
He’s the mayor of LONG BEACH Tinseltown once more. Months after turning himself into America’s dancing darling on ABC’s Dancing with the
Stars, James Hinchcliffe returned to Hollywood to win Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The 30-year-old Canadian held on to his lead after two late restarts and came away with the victory in the second race of the Verizon IndyCar Series season.
The win was the fifth in the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver’s IndyCar career. For Hinchcliffe, the victory was the punctuation mark on his comeback after a horrific 2015 crash in practice for the Indianapolis 500 almost took his life. Sunday’s victory came two years almost to the day of his last, at NOLA Motorsports Park in Avondale, La., on April 12, 2015.
“A lot’s changed since the last time we were sitting up here, but it’s just so nice to be back in victory lane,” Hinchcliffe said Sunday night. “We were close last year. A lot of people talked about 2016 being my comeback year, and we really wanted to, as a team, put an exclamation point on that by getting into victory circle. We came as close as humanly possible in Texas last year but didn’t get the job done. ... To get a win here at a track I love so much, a track that’s been very good to me in my career and one I think is the Indy 500 of street tracks ... it made it very special.”
Ed Carpenter Racing driver J.R. Hildebrand broke a bone in his left hand after his No. 21 Chevrolet made contact with Mikhail Aleshin’s No. 7 Honda during the final lap.
IndyCar announced that its doctors have not cleared Hildebrand to return to competition. He will be re-evaluated upon his return to Indianapolis.
Hinchcliffe sported one of the series’ fastest cars all weekend, and he finished fourth in qualifying Saturday. At the start of the race, Hinchcliffe jumped ahead two spots into second place and, from there, battled among the top five.
He seized the lead once on lap 56 but quickly ceded it to Scott Dixon two laps later. However, he regained the top spot on lap 63 and never relinquished it — though a pair of late cautions put his victory in jeopardy.
“I had to fight off some guys in some restarts at the end there,” Hinchcliffe said. “But in those last few laps we were cruising along, and the last thing you want to hear is caution. And we heard it twice. But we’re able to hold of Ryan (Hunter-Reay) after the first and Sebastien (Bourdais) in the second.”
St. Petersburg ’s worst-to-first winner Bourdais maintained his points lead with a second-place finish for Dale Coyne Racing. He finished ahead of Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden, Chip Ganassi Racing ’s Scott Dixon and Penske’s Simon Pagenaud, who started at the back of the pack after a qualifying penalty.
The day was a disaster for Andretti Autosport, which lost all four drivers to mechanical issues.
Hinchcliffe, though, endured no such issues, claiming team owner Sam Schmidt’s first win at Long Beach.
Saturday after qualifying, Hinchcliffe said he remembered going to bed in tears after some rough runs at Long Beach for him and Honda.
“I feel like we’re back,” Hinchcliffe, said. “I feel like we’ve been back for a while now, but to get back into victory’s circle (is special).”