James Hinchcliffe said a careless move by rival Takuma Sato ruined his race in St Petersburg.
The pair made contact on lap 23 when Sato aimed his car down the inside of Hinchcliffe at turn one. Hinchcliffe, who was 12th at the time, suffered a right-front puncture, which ruined his race. The Andretti driver said his race never recovered from that point.“The day started off fine,” said Hinchcliffe. “We got a decent start and in that first stint we were just in fuel save mode, trying to work on an overcut. We were really taking care of our black tyres there, we were looking really good compared to some of the guys on reds ahead of us.
“Then on that restart Takuma just ran out of patience and talent and hit us and flattened our tyre and that was pretty much the story of our day. We never got our lap back the way the yellows fell.”
Hinchcliffe was involved in a second incident later in the race when he was hit by Ed Jones, who was lapping him.
“In the race we started so far back in 21st we really had to try things to get up the grid,” Jones explained. “To make a few things work I had to make a lot of risky passes.
McLaren SP’s Patricio O’Ward was also involved in the collision between Hinchcliffe and Jones, damaging his front wing on the Coyne machine. O’Ward had reached the Fast Six in qualifying for the second race in a row, but had already fallen to 17th when the collision happened.
“I don’t really know how to describe it,” he said of his race, “probably just horrific.”
Despite his impressive qualifying performances, O’Ward lies 11th in the points after the first two races. “We’ll switch gears and look forwards to Texas,” he said. “It’s a double-header, lots of points up for grabs, we’ll be looking to redeem ourselves.”
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Exediron (@exediron)
26th April 2021, 22:28
He ran out of patience, I agree. But from my memory of the move he was fully alongside before the apex and Hinch decided to turn in as if he wasn’t there. I think it’s debatable where the lack of talent lay in that collision.
maxd23
27th April 2021, 4:41
I don’t even know why the author or this website decided to print this nonsense article. All three commentators on NBCSN said the blame lay with Hinchcliffe for turning down onto Sato, as Sato was fully alongside. Any real racer would know when his competitor moves from his mirrors and then disappears, which means they are now next to you. It comes down to respect: and neither Hinchcliffe nor the write nor this website gave Sato any measure of respect.
You rarely see champions like Dixon or Newgarden making silly avoidable mistakes like this. They always finish races. As opposed to Hinchcliffe who speared Harvey just a few months back at St Pete or Rossi who got entangled with Rahal despite the fact Rahal was faster and on hot tires. Guys like Rossi and Hinch get red mist so easily and they’d rather crash than allow a faster car to pass cleanly.
Speaking of champions: Sato is a two-time Indy 500 winner. Hinch has zero Indy 500 wins. Show some respect.
Dave
27th April 2021, 11:20
Sato got P6 in the end. Too bad for Hinch.
Don Dahler
27th April 2021, 22:19
Correct Max. I didn’t see that as Sato’s fault. Also, he has two Indy 500 wins, Hinch has done nothing during his career.