“There’s been a lot of talk about it in the off-season, when that first one was going to come, what we had to do to get there. My answer was always the same. We had to minimize the mistakes.”
On Sunday, James Hinchcliffe did just that and in the end, he was able to pick up the victory in St. Petersburg for his first career victory.
The moment that changed the race was the final restart when Helio Castroneves overbraked going into turn one, giving Hinchcliffe just enough room on the inside.
However, Hinchcliffe admitted after the race that he thought he would only lead for a couple laps with the tires he was on. hinchcliffe was on the black tires, while the rest of the field were on reds. Team engineer Craig Hampton made the decision to put Hinchcliffe on the blacks after issues earlier in the race while they were on the reds.
“I thought I would lead for a couple laps, but he would catch up,” he said. “For that many laps on technically the slower tires took everything out of me.”
As the laps closed out to the win, team owner Michael Andretti was pretty sure Hinch had it locked it up with 10 laps to go. However, Hinch says he didn’t feel that calm about it till about four laps to go when he opened up a bit of a gap.
“All weekend we really struggled out of the last corner,” he added. “Obviously that leads onto the longest straightaway and best passing opportunity.”
Noting that the Penske Racing cars had been quick there, he knew that there was a good chance he could possibly lose the lead in that section.
“For me the focus was getting out of Turn 10,” he explained. “I knew no matter what I did I was going to be slow compared to him out of the last corner. It was just being absolutely picture perfect lap after lap. I had a couple more overtakes than he did. With four to go I opened up enough of a gap that I could save the fuel I need to save and not make any mistakes.”
For the driver of the No. 27 Go Daddy Chevrolet, it was only a matter of time till he found victory lane.
“The team is good, the car is good, the engineers are good,” he said. “We proved last year the team is capable of winning. It’s down to me on any given Sunday to minimize mistakes.”
Last year, the mayor of Hinchtown finished in the top six in eight of the 15 races on his way to finishing eighth in points. He has also grown to have his own following of fans, from both the U.S and Canada, with his fun loving personality.
“I’ve always tried to be myself at the racetrack,” he said. “I think some people at some points in my career thought that maybe I wasn’t taking my job seriously enough or something like that.”
Hinchcliffe added that hopefully holding of Castroneves proves that a joker off the track can get it done on the track.
While showcasing his personality, he has also brought out a side of him through the marketing with Go Daddy. Last year’s commercials with Danica Patrick in trying to take over the home page displayed that.
The win for Hinchcliffe does mark the first win for Go Daddy in IndyCar as Patrick’s IndyCar win came when she had the Motorola colors.
“I can’t tell you how much that means,” he said. “They obviously took a big gamble on me. I’d only been in the series a year. We won Rookie of the Year, but hadn’t done tremendous things. For Andretti and Go Daddy to take that chance on us. We were in shouting distance of a win a few times last year. It was that last piece that was missing.
“Today, beginning of the season, first race, to get that out of the way, get the Go Daddy car in Victory Lane for the first time, it’s awesome. Thankful for Bob Parsons and everybody at the company. Hopefully it’s a match they’ll carry on for a number of years to come.”
Maybe this is the perfect step that Hinchcliffe had to take to begin to forge his own identity with the car as many made the comment last year that Hinchcliffe was driving Danica’s car.
“Certainly following Danica was a big ask,” he commented. “I guess we put a lot of effort into making sure it wasn’t the guy driving Danica’s car. We really wanted to make it our own by playing off her last year, things like that. I hope now, especially after things like this, You’re the guy driving Danica’s car. Hopefully when we get to the races this year, it will be, That’s Hinch’s car.”
