Just how good was Oakville, Ont.’s James Hinchcliffe in winning this past weekend’s race at the Izod IndyCar series in Iowa? He pretty much led the entire race with the exception of exchanges in top spot as pit stops cycled through. That’s putting a beating on the field.
Being part of the Andretti Autosport team that has now won five of the seven Iowa Speedway races certainly helps and the Mayor of Hinchtown gave the team full credit for the victory. This win also serves notice to the rest of the contenders that James is in it to win it (sorry for the American Idol reference) — the championship that is.
We’ve seen his work on road courses already this season with impressive victories at the season opener in St. Petersburg and in Brazil. Prior to the race at Iowa Hinchcliffe had led a total of 33 laps on ovals. He doubled that at Iowa before making his first pit stop of the day.
Of course when you win in such impressive fashion you make a leap forward in the point standings. After slipping down as far as 10th overall Hinchcliffe has climbed back up to fourth overall.
Sitting behind teammates Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay, they are all within striking distance of overall leader Helio Castroneves, who finished eighth at Iowa. The championship battle in the second half of the season should be very exciting to watch right down to the final laps in Fontana, Calif., in October.
Other weekend notes
Great run for Ed Carpenter and Graham Rahal, who finished fourth and fifth respectively. When the checkered flag waved at Iowa it concluded a grueling run for teams with five consecutive race weekends, including the Indy 500 and Detroit doubleheader. These two smaller teams will definitely be pleased to see an off weekend.
Unfortunately the same is not true for Alex Tagliani. It was another difficult race for Tag. As he tried to move around Dario Franchitti Tagliani got the Barracuda car a little wide and washed up the track in the marbles and brushed the wall. Damage to the car was too severe to repair and they retired from the race. In the last six races Alex’s best result has been a 21st place finish. The poor results are not solely the fault of the team; much of the disappointment is a result of bad luck and being an innocent victim. Still, this is a team in need of time off to regroup.
It’s still a mystery why Franchitti is having such struggles this year. Great team, plenty of resources but yet he started 21st and finished 20th. Remarkable.
Some teams will test this week prior to the next event at Pocono Raceway on July 7. The week after is the Honda Indy Toronto and Hinchcliffe’s successes this year are only doing good things to build excitement for the only Canadian stop on the IndyCar tour.