Making just his third visit to his hometown Grand Prix, James Hinchcliffe would appear to have his best shot at winning this weekend on the streets of Exhibition Place in Toronto, Canada.
Hard luck James Hinchcliffe looking for first victory at hometown Toronto Grand Prix
James Hinchcliffe considers the Honda Grand Prix of Toronto his home race. While he has yet to win at Exhibition Place, he will get two chances this weekend with the doubleheader format.
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In addition to the doubleheader format that provides two chances to win on the same weekend, Hinchcliffe also enters the event as the IndyCar Series wins leader with three trips to victory lane.
Despite the early success this season, Hinchcliffe is not feeling especially sure that he has a great shot to win in front of his fellow countrymen -- it just adds to the pressure that he may not.
“It’s probably the worst I’ve felt because now the expectation is higher and I’m still expecting some sort of bad luck to come into play,” Hinchcliffe said prior to qualifying on Friday. “It’s a bit of a double-edged sword because, statistically, it’s the best chance we’ve had on paper.
“And it’s one of those things where you want to come here and do well but at the same time, history just hasn’t been very kind to us.”
Despite his three wins, Hinchcliffe has also had six finishes outside of the top-10, including three races (Birmingham, Long Beach and Pocono) where he was the last driver scored. This has left him in fifth in the championship standings, 84 markers behind leader Helio Castroneves.
In two prior Toronto starts, Hinchcliffe finished 14th and 22nd,respectively. He hasn’t fared much better in Ontario either.
“Every track you have good races and bad races,” Hinchcliffe said. “It just seems like here I have way, way more of the latter and way too few of the former. We’ll see. You have to stay positive and we have to keep our heads up.
“Ultimately, you have to treat it like any other race and we’ll go up there and do the same job we would if we were at other track and we’ll see how it all plays out.”
Hinchcliffe starts 14th in Race No. 1 on Saturday.
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