Photo Credit: Chris Owens/IndyCar
James Hinchcliffe, driver of the No.5 Arrow Honda, finished sixth in the morning practice and second in the afternoon session in getting ready for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
He didn’t start off his season very well with a crash during the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and a crash during practice for the Grand Prix of Phoenix at Phoenix International Raceway. So Hinchcliffe is looking to bounce back. Even though it is just practice he feels like he has a strong car that will be good in the race.
“Absolutely, “Hinchcliffe said. “Everything is relative. We’ve had a difficult start to the season, but not like the end of my last one. It’s easy to still sleep well at night knowing things could be worse. We had a strong car in St. Pete, qualified decently, inside the top 10 there. The race didn’t play out. Phoenix was its own deal. We’re looking to try to turn that around this weekend, start getting some points on the board.
“It’s a track I really like coming to, an event I love coming to. The car was great off the truck. Made very few changes over lunch, which is always a nice thing when you’re not thrashing. The pace was still relatively decent this afternoon. It doesn’t matter till it matters, but it’s definitely a good starting point for us.”
Hinch likes coming to Long Beach and racing on streets because there is such a history to the race. IndyCar has been racing there for 42 years and has seen a lot of victories from many different drivers. He would like to add his name to that list on Sunday.
“It’s great,” Hinchcliffe said. “This event in general is so awesome. You don’t successfully pull something off for 42 years unless you’re doing something right. They do a lot right here. The circuit itself as far as street courses go is one of the most unique. You have some of the coolest corners in street course racing with the hairpin and the fountain.
“Even corners like turn six, an increasing radius, a bunch of elevation, things you don’t see in street courses. I think it’s what makes the track pretty special and unique and a good challenge for the drivers.”
The last race was at Phoenix, which is an oval and this race is a street course. Hinch says there isn’t really a difference going from and oval race to a street course race.
“It really isn’t,” Hinchcliffe said. “You kind of gain this ability over the years to kind of flick that switch pretty quick. When you’re driving into a venue on Thursday, you know what you’re getting yourself into, you know what to prepare for. When you’re strapping yourself into the car, doesn’t matter if you’re at an oval or a road course, a street course, you know what kind of mindset you need to be in.”
Hinch comes into Long beach with a confidence that the Honda aerokits will give him equal footing to run against Chevrolet’s aerokit as since St. Pete, they have improved on their aero package.
“Doesn’t hurt,” Hinchcliffe said. “I think if you look at St. Pete compared to a year prior, the difference was noticeable. I mean, the Hondas were very competitive, right up there with the competition. We kind of expected a similar sort of scenario here.
“Obviously Phoenix was a bit of an anomaly. Internally we’re looking into why that happened quite the way it did. We were never worried that was going to be a trend. Coming here I think we proved that. I haven’t seen the full rundown yet, but I know there were a couple guys running up front. Graham was strong. Hawksworth was strong. Hunter-Reay is always quick here. He’ll find his way to the front. I think we’re going to see a much more even field in that sense.”
Hinch credits his team for working on the car they had at St. Pete after the race there to get it ready for the race at Long Beach.
“You know, honestly we were pretty pleased with the package in St. Pete,” Hinchcliffe said. “We didn’t change a lot fundamentally. There’s little things you do different here just because it suits this circuit better than St. Pete. The fundamentals were all pretty similar.
“Like I said, our race was kind of over before it started in turn one there. Once we got running again, the race pace was good. We were pretty happy with the racecar we had. Unloaded pretty much with that package. It seems to be working pretty well so far here.”
