INDYCAR: Project 2016 - James Hinchcliffe

RACER talks with some of the likely contenders for this year's Verizon IndyCar Series championship about how they're approaching the coming season.

It's good to see a death-defying crash last May at Indy hasn't dampened James Hinchcliffe's sense of humor as he prepares to make his IndyCar return. The Mayor of Hinchtown had a rough 2015 season that ended when a suspension component broke entering Turn 3 at nearly 230mph. The ensuing impact was extraordinarily painful as a different suspension item punched through the cockpit of Hinchcliffe's No. 5 Dallara DW12 and pierced his leg and backside.

Fully recovered, the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team leader says his championship plans in the ARROW Honda start with one modest revision.

"Physically, for 2016, I'm ready to go, and I'm going to try really hard not to be stabbed by anything," he said with a laugh. "That's a big goal for me...to make it through 2016 without being shish-kabobbed. I'm starting there."

Kidding aside, Hinchcliffe was in the middle of a promising debut season with SPM at the time of his crash, carrying one win and eighth place in the drivers' championship into the Indy 500. Without the unfortunate interruption, it's entirely possible the Canadian ace would have remained among the title contenders. Even with only a partial five-race season to draw from, Hinchcliffe says he's found at least one area to enhance for 2016.

"I think it is foolish to not look after yourself after every season and see what can be improved and can't be improved," he added. "Only one guy won the championship, and given the particular guy who won it, even he is probably looking inwards to see what can be done better. This is a hungry group of drivers and everybody's going to be pushing themselves. And you can't rest on your laurels in a series this competitive.

"For me, I obviously didn't get as many runs as I would've liked last year, but I understand how important qualifying is in the series. It's just so close, so competitive, putting yourself in a good position on Sunday by having a good day Saturday is just so important and helps the cause so much."

Citing his performances, and those of Conor Daly and Ryan Briscoe, who shared driving duties in the No. 5 after his injury, Hinchcliffe sees qualifying improvements as a team-wide emphasis for the new season.

"Last year's overall numbers weren't necessarily awesome in qualifying but – and you hate to look at it this way – comparing it to other Hondas, we were actually fairly competitive," he said. "But there's always room for improvement. For me, a big focus this year is going to be qualifying. But we will look at places where we weren't the quickest Honda or as close to being the quickest Honda, and try and surmise why and how to fix that."

Reducing driving errors is another focus for Hinchcliffe.

"I try to do the same thing every time I get in the car and that is just making the fewest mistakes as possible," he continued. "Whether it is qualifying, you're trying to make the right decisions, you're trying to make the fewest amount of mistakes. And it is usually the guys that screw up the least that end up on top. Because everybody here is good. Everybody here is fast. Everybody here can win."

If Hinchcliffe's error rates are improved, and his SPM team matches the decrease on strategy calls and pit stops, he believes a championship will be within reach.

"It's the combination of team and driver that maximize the opportunities they are given and make the fewest mistakes that come out on top, week in and week out," he said. "Rather than saying we want to win this many races, it's, 'Hey, if we screw up as little as possible and do our jobs every single weekend, we probably won't win them all but we will be in a good position at the end of the year.'"

Hinchcliffe has a new teammate this year as Mikhail Aleshin returns to SPM. After completing his rookie season with SPM in 2014, and making a one-off appearance at the 2015 season finale in the No. 7 SMP Honda, the Russian's aptitude for road courses and ovals should provide SPM a stronger tandem at every round.

"That is certainly the hope, and I think the potential is there to do that," Hinchcliffe said. "Until we get to a race weekend, it is tough to know exactly where everything stacks up in that sense, but we have some really good things working for us. He's shown that he is fearless on the ovals, he enjoys them. He openly admits he loves driving on them. He picked them up faster than any transplant from Europe that I have ever seen. And that certainly bodes well.

"I think that the fact that he's obviously done a season with the team, he knows how they work, they know how he works; it puts you a half a step ahead of a guy that would have to come in and be learning everybody's working styles from scratch. So there's definitely some things I think we have working for us, and it will be really interesting to see when we get to St. Pete and beyond how it all stacks up."

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