James Hinchcliffe nearly lost his life in a 2015 crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His first Verizon IndyCar Series victory since that accident took nearly two years, but it was certainly rewarding.
Honda won just two of the 16 IndyCar races last season compared to Chevrolet’s 14 victories. However, Honda came into this season powering the cars of two of the biggest three teams in the sport, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport.
But it was Dale Coyne Racing with Sebastien Bourdais that delivered Honda its first win at St. Petersburg since the whole field was Honda-powered in 2011. Honda also got its first win on ANY road or street course since Graham Rahal won at Mid-Ohio in 2015.
Now, they have done it again, this time with James Hinchcliffe of Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. Hinchcliffe was victorious after leading 25 of the 85 laps around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile temporary street circuit in Long Beach, California. He started the race from the 4th position.
The win was the first for Hinchcliffe since he won at New Orleans in April of 2015, which was before his life-threatening crash at Indianapolis in May of that year. He held off 2nd place Sebastien Bourdais by 1.4940 seconds to claim the victory, the fifth of his career.
Other Notable Statistics
The race featured a total of six lead changes among three different drivers and had three caution flag periods for a total of 11 laps. Scott Dixon led the most laps, leading 32 of the race’s 85. Ryan Hunter-Reay also led 28 laps. Polesitter Helio Castroneves lost five spots on the start of the race and was never able to recover, finishing in 9th place without ever leading.
The first caution flag of the race flew on lap 1 when there was contact between Will Power and Charlie Kimball in turn 4. Power was never able to fully recover, finishing in 13th place, one lap down. Kimball was out of the race after the accident.
The second caution flag of the race flew on lap 63 when Alexander Rossi’s engine blew up on the front straightaway. He was in a battle for the lead with Hinchcliffe at the time. The third caution flag flew on lap 80 when Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car shut off in turn 5. He, too, was in contention for the race win like his Andretti Autosport teammate Rossi at the time of their respective race-terminating incidents.
Individual Ups and Downs
Rookie Ed Jones finished in 6th place in his second career IndyCar race after starting in 13th place. His teammate Sebastien Bourdais finished in 2nd place following his season-opening victory at St. Petersburg. Like at St. Petersburg, Bourdais went from the back to the front, as he was all the way back in 20th place early on at Long Beach.
Speaking of last to first, Simon Pagenaud started in dead last (21st) in today’s race because of a penalty in qualifying. He ended up finishing in 5th place.
Josef Newgarden scored his first podium finish for Team Penske in 3rd place as the highest finishing Chevrolet driver. Scott Dixon, the leader of a plurality of the race’s laps, finished right behind Newgarden in 4th place.
Andretti Autosport was the team to beat today from a speed standpoint, but all four of their drivers’ cars had mechanical or electrical issues. Marco Andretti went out early with an issue, finishing in 20th place. Alexander Rossi followed suit later in the race and finishing in 19th place before Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay had similar occurrences and finished in 18th and 17th places, respectively.
See full race results from the second race of the season at IndyCar.com.
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Next Race
The series takes a two-week break before it returns on Sunday, April 23rd, 2017. Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama, hosts the 8th Grand Prix of Alabama that day. Simon Pagenaud won the event last season, but it didn’t come easily. He will look to defend that victory this season.