Canadian race car driver and IndyCar series' rookie James Hinchcliffe led yesterday's race at Mid-Ohio but lost all chances of scoring a good result when he made a silly mistake.
Hinchcliffe, who drives for the No. 06 Sprott Newman-Haas team dropped from seventh to the back of the field on the opening lap when fellow countryman AlexTagliani pushed him off course.
“Hinch” moved back to the front and led 26 laps for the first time in his IndyCar career. Unfortunately, he went off course on lap 62 when he was running in fifth place.
"We started from our best road course starting spot and on the first lap Tag (Tagliani) decided I didn't deserve enough race track to stay on the race track and I got pushed off in Turn 5 so we fell right to the back,” Hinchcliffe said after the race.
“I thought I may have bent something on the car so we sat around the back (of the field) for a bit. We decided to take the early pit window and go for the lucky yellow and it worked out just perfectly. We got around Danica (Patrick) on that restart and managed to keep Scott (Dixon) and Dario (Franchitti)at bay while making the fuel mileage that we needed because obviously we were stretching it a little bit,” the 24-year old said.
“We came in for our second stop and it looked like we were going to cycle out about third and then that caution came out and that's what really threw us for a loop because we opted for the black tires that last stint. I ran very well on them in the middle stint but we knew from warm-up that they took a little longer to come up to temperature.
“When it came up to that restart I got passed by a couple of the KV cars and was going into the keyhole trying to keep TK (Kanaan) behind me and made a rookie mistake. It's one of the tough things about being a rookie is that when you make those mistakes it's usually very public. And after the day we had, was unfortunate because the guys did such a good job. The car was obviously phenomenal. I can deal with failures, I can deal with being taken out but my own personal mistakes are the toughest thing to deal with,” the former Indy Lights driver said.
Hinchcliffe, who drives for the No. 06 Sprott Newman-Haas team dropped from seventh to the back of the field on the opening lap when fellow countryman AlexTagliani pushed him off course.
“Hinch” moved back to the front and led 26 laps for the first time in his IndyCar career. Unfortunately, he went off course on lap 62 when he was running in fifth place.
"We started from our best road course starting spot and on the first lap Tag (Tagliani) decided I didn't deserve enough race track to stay on the race track and I got pushed off in Turn 5 so we fell right to the back,” Hinchcliffe said after the race.
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| James Hinchcliffe (Photo: HinchTown Facebook) |
“I thought I may have bent something on the car so we sat around the back (of the field) for a bit. We decided to take the early pit window and go for the lucky yellow and it worked out just perfectly. We got around Danica (Patrick) on that restart and managed to keep Scott (Dixon) and Dario (Franchitti)at bay while making the fuel mileage that we needed because obviously we were stretching it a little bit,” the 24-year old said.
“We came in for our second stop and it looked like we were going to cycle out about third and then that caution came out and that's what really threw us for a loop because we opted for the black tires that last stint. I ran very well on them in the middle stint but we knew from warm-up that they took a little longer to come up to temperature.
“When it came up to that restart I got passed by a couple of the KV cars and was going into the keyhole trying to keep TK (Kanaan) behind me and made a rookie mistake. It's one of the tough things about being a rookie is that when you make those mistakes it's usually very public. And after the day we had, was unfortunate because the guys did such a good job. The car was obviously phenomenal. I can deal with failures, I can deal with being taken out but my own personal mistakes are the toughest thing to deal with,” the former Indy Lights driver said.