LONG BEACH, Calif. — After a crash two years ago during practice for the Indianapolis 500, in which a suspension piece came through James Hinchcliffe’s cockpit and nearly cost him his life, many people wondered if he would ever return to the top of the Verizon IndyCar Series podium.
Hinchcliffe answered those questions with a resounding statement on Sunday afternoon, driving to victory in the 43rd annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The Canadian fan favorite took the lead on lap 63 as Scott Dixon hit pit road, just moments before a full-course caution flew for the stalled car of Alexander Rossi on the frontstretch and wiped out pit strategy from the battle for the win.
On a two-stop strategy as opposed to a three-stop strategy, Hinchcliffe conserved enough fuel under the yellow to be able to go flat-out all the way to the finish, driving out to a two-second lead over Ryan Hunter-Reay following a restart with 16 laps left and comfortably maintaining pace as the race wound into its final stages.
Ultimately however, Hunter-Reay fell by the wayside after his car encountered electrical troubles with six laps to go, bringing out the final caution and setting up a three lap dash to the finish, in which Hinchcliffe pulled away from Sebastien Bourdais by 1.4940 seconds en route to his fifth career victory.
For Hinchcliffe, Sunday broke a drought dating back to NOLA Motorsports Park in April of 2015, just a month before his near-fatal crash. As such, victory lane was understandably emotional.
“After Indy and for me personally, Toronto, this is the biggest race (in IndyCar) to win,” Hinchcliffe said. “I’ve had a lot of luck here. We’ve been really quick here in the past and to finally get to victory lane here is more than I can put into words.”
“This place has a lot of history. That what drivers really care about. The greatest of the greats have won here. Toronto, Indy and this place were on my bucket list to win before I die … and it’s nice to finally check one off.”
Sunday’s win was the fifth of Hinchcliffe’s Indy car career and the sixth for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports as a team, but for both sides, it was their first time on top at Long Beach.
Hinchcliffe became the second Canadian to win the Long Beach Grand Prix, following on from his countryman and friend Paul Tracy, who pointed the fact out from the NBC Sports broadcast booth after the race.
“I watched Paul win here, so it meant a ton to me,” he pointed out. “We had to fight today. That makes (this win) mean even more to me.”
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