As James Hinchcliffe sits in Coronation Park on Thursday morning, hearing him recall memories of Toronto past, you can see the fan that he is of IndyCar racing. As a kid, Hinchcliffe came to the Honda Indy Toronto, having only grown up a half hour away from Toronto in Oakville, Ontario.
“I remember being five, six years old and climbing under the grandstands, meeting Mario Andretti and getting his autograph,” Hinchcliffe recalls. “When the cars were at the fuel tank, a little more open and exposed, I’d go stand there. One of the mechanics let me hold a steering wheel – it was one of the coolest things ever.”
Flashforward to 2013, Hinhcliffe is looking to make his third Toronto start in the IZOD IndyCar Series, driving the No. 27 Go Daddy car for Andretti Autosport.
“It’s one of my favourite weekends of the year getting to come home,” Hinchcliffe says. “This is what started my passion and got me interested in the sport.”
Even though he is back home, it doesn’t give him a ton of time with family due to the commitments.
“It’s part of it,” he says. “I’m here to do a job this weekend. Next weekend we have off so I have taken all of the next week off to stay here in Canada, visit some friends, visit some family.”
Focusing on the weekend ahead, Hinchcliffe is looking for better luck than he has had in the past. In his previous two starts, he has finished 14th and 22nd. He did have some success in Toronto in the past though, finishing third in the Firestone Indy Lights division in 2009.
“The track hasn’t been real good to me,” he says. “We’ve been competitive and I’ve led laps in a different series. But whether it has been mechanical or just being out thought of by guys, I just haven’t had that luck here at all.”
With that in mind, Hinchcliffe is coming into the weekend “with the feeling that everything is going to go wrong”.
It sort of falls along Hinchcliffe’s season so far as he has been fast every week, picking up three race wins, but hasn’t had the consistency with wrecks and mechanical problems taking him out of contention some weeks.
“It’s been way less consistent than it needs to be said,” he says. “I can’t say it’s been a bad year with three wins. I mean, that’s such a huge accomplishment for the team. But we need to have top 10s in between those wins.”
Last year, it was Hinchcliffe’s teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay picking up the win in Toronto.
“He did a great job last year,” Hinchcliffe comments. “Ryan is such a tough competitor and really good on the street circuits. I actually learned a lot from him last year. It’s great to have a teammate like that where you can work together.”
Hinchcliffe says looking back at Hunter-Reay’s win, he remembers the restart before Hinch had the mechanical problems that took him out of the running.
“I was starting right beside him so I know I was in position to win,” Hinchcliffe comments. “So hopefully we’ll have all four cars up there and get one of them to victory lane.”
There’s also the joke that whenever Hunter-Reay comes to Canada, the California native calls himself “Canadian” because his mom was born in Hamilton, Ontario.
“It’s special for him to win here,” Hinchcliffe adds. “If I can’t win and its an Andretti-Autosport driver that is half-Canadian, that’s not a bad guy.”
If Hinchcliffe wants to have success this weekend, he’ll have the master the corner that he calls the toughest for him: turn one.
“Turn one is everything challenging,” Hinchcliffe says. “First you got bumps on the entry, which hurt braking. You have the concrete patch in hte middle of the corner which affects your balance in the middle of the corner, which then leads to a nice long straight. You have to have a good exit or we’re losing time all the way down to turn three. To set up for that, whether set-up of your car or how you plan your way to get through it, it can be a challenge.”
If all that is not enough, just imagine having to do it back-to-back days as for the first time in series history, the IZOD IndyCar Series is running back-to-back races in Toronto with one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The first time IndyCar did that format this year was in Detroit, where it seemed race one was calm while race two had a bunch of incidents throughout.
“We learned a lot in Detroit, but the way the weather unfolded Saturday and all the rest of it, we have a lot to learn,” Hinchcliffe says. “Engineers hate change and rely on 10 years of data and say, ‘We’ll have a caution at this lap’. This is how those guys operate. It’s going to be challenging with strategy and what tires. Those are the things we have to learn.”
Hinchcliffe adds that you will probably see different tire strategies throughout the weekend and there may be a big difference between those who hit the right combination and those who don’t.
Managing the two races, along with the sponsor and media commitments, it’s a challenge that the driver are being faced with.
“All the drivers have upped their physical,” Hinchcliffe says as per the preparation for this weekend. “You have to be conscious about nutrition, hydration over the weekend. Most drivers have physios with them so they can deal with what comes up.”
Hinchcliffe adds that the schedule adds another challenge by the practice time being minimized.
“So if you’re not unrolling with a good car, you’re essentially penalized and it makes it frustrating,” Hinchcliffe says.
If having double races is not enough of a challenge, IndyCar has gone with “standing starts” for the first of the two races. Instead of the traditional rolling starts, the cars will be stopped on the front stretch and have the light countdown.
“That’s going to be a big challenge for us,” Hinchcliffe comments. “We haven’t had a chance to practice that. A lot of guys haven’t done it in years so hopefully we get through it catastrophe free cause we got a race the next to run.”
If you’re not already pumped to come down to the Honda Indy Toronto this weekend with all the new things instore, Hinchcliffe says that you should give it a chance as TV can’t do it justice.
“You have to be here to see it, hear it and smell it,” Hinhcliffe says.
