Photo Credit: IndyCar
For the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, James Hinchcliffe, driver of the No. 5 Arrow Electric Honda, would end up with a top-10 finish to end the month of May.
The Canadian come into the month of May ready to put last year’s horrific accident he was in at IMS in practice for the 2015 Indy 500 behind him. He started right off the bat in doing that with getting a podium in the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis finishing third.
The driver better known as Hinch then stepped it up an even bigger notch with getting into the fast nine in qualifying, and capturing the pole for the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500.
“I have to give everybody on the Arrow crew a ton of credit for the effort the entire month,” he said. “Coming in third at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, qualifying on the pole and the race here, it was a solid effort.”
For the first half of the race he had one of the strongest cars in the race as he and Ryan Hunter-Reay were both battling each other for the lead. As the race went on the track changed as the temperatures changed and notably effected tires more than in the earlier part of the race.
“We were super strong the first half and definitely had one of the cars to beat,” he said. “It was really just track temperatures that caught us out there. We started losing grip as the temperatures came up late in the afternoon and the last two stints were a real struggle when we tried to make the tires last.”
As the laps ticked away at the end of the race, it came down to a fuel mileage race and the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports driver would need to come in to top off.
“Well, more than a stint because we come in for that splash of fuel at the end,” he said. “ A couple of guys out there took a punt on fuel- congrats to Alex (Rossi) and great to see Honda back on top. Realistically, I think we had a third – or fourth-place effort today, which is nothing to turn your nose up at.”
