INDYCAR Driver Review 2016: James Hinchcliffe

Just when you thought that the Verizon IndyCar Series had run out of ways to surprise, 2016 came along. The championship was won by a guy who looked all at sea 12 months earlier, his closest rival didn't even participate in the first race, and the winner of the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 was a recent F1 refugee who apparently figured out how to make a car work without fuel.

Twenty-four drivers made at least three starts during the 2016 season, and each one is a story. Join RACER each day as we retrace their journeys.

JAMES HINCHCLIFFE

NO. 5 SCHMIDT PETERSON MOTORSPORT HONDA

Preseason hopes: "I try really hard not to put numeric values to success or to goals. To me, a successful season is one where we can look ourselves in the mirror and say that we made as few mistakes as possible, and learn from any that we did. I do kind of have a goal of finishing every lap in a season – Marco did a pretty good job of that last year – and that’s the kind of thing you need to be in it at the end."

2016 Best result: 2nd (Texas)
2016 Championship position: 13th (416 points)

Hinchcliffe missed most of 2015 through injury. Any signs of rust?

MILLER: None. From his first time back in the car at Road America in the fall, to the 2016 season-opener, he was on it mentally and physically. Matter of fact, he was stronger than before his accident. In the first seven races he only qualified outside the Top 10 once, and was in the Fast Six at Indy GP and Belle Isle and just missed at Long Beach (seventh), so that was a good yardstick of his recovery. And, of course, his pole at Indianapolis was one of the best stories imaginable.

PRUETT: If there was, I didn't see it once the season got underway. He's always been fast and focused, and with a decent amount of pre-season testing to handle the rust, Hinch was in his usual form by the time we got to St. Pete.

If there's one thing he lost in the crash, it was time to develop into a proper team leader. He's a great source of positivity for SPM, his crew members would do anything for him, but that's not unique among the best drivers. Simon Pagenaud, his SPM predecessor, was held in the same regard, but he also developed into someone who steered the team from the cockpit. Whether it was engineering decisions, strategy calls, or other areas that had team-wide impacts, Pagenaud became the engine that powered SPM.

With less than half a season to assume that role before his big crash at Indy, the one area of rust, if that's what it should be called, was learning how to lead SPM in and out of the car.

Pole for Indy, three podiums – one on a road course, one on a street course, one on an oval – and fifth Honda in the championship behind Rahal and three of the Andretti cars. Should he be satisfied with that?

PRUETT: Of course not. Hinch's friendly exterior masks the driven individual who isn't fond of excuses or underwhelming performances. Only one Honda team was able to solve the complex aero kit puzzle - Rahal - and the rest fell far behind. If Hinch and SPM were a distant third to Rahal and Andretti, I'd be worried. In reality, Andretti went P10-11-12 and SPM went P13-15, and Hinch finished directly behind Ryan Hunter-Reay. It was a bad year for a lot of good Honda drivers.

MILLER: He should be, but he probably wasn't because he struggled at one of his favorite tracks (Iowa) and wasn't competitive at Phoenix. He led the second-most laps at the Indy 500 before fading to seventh at the end. The big disappointment had to be dominating Texas (led 188 laps) and losing by a few feet to Graham Rahal. Still, considering Honda's aero kit disadvantage in road racing trim, thirds at Indy GP and Toronto and fifth at Mid-Ohio were encouraging.

From what you saw this year, are all the ingredients in place for the Hinch/Schmidt combination to regularly achieve the same sorts of results that we see from Honda cohort RLL?

MILLER: Absolutely. He and veteran engineer Allen McDonald have meshed well and had the quickest Honda several times last season. Hinch knows how to win and expects to win, but they just weren't as consistent as RLL, and had about four races where they missed the setup. But they've proven to be a factor on all four disciplines, and will be again in 2017.

PRUETT: The ingredients? For sure. The structure? No, unfortunately. If SPM went back to one car and stacked all of its engineering talent around Hinch (which would replicate RLLR's model for Graham), I'm confident we'd see Canada's finest running alongside Rahal.

SPM was a top five contender with Simon Pagenaud leading the team's technical and development needs from the cockpit. Is this the biggest area where Hinch needs to grow in order to move the team forward?

PRUETT: That's another significant question for Hinch to answer. Pagenaud's technical expertise was forged from years of top sports car R&D, and when he arrived in IndyCar to lead SPM's single-car program, the Frenchman's experience made a big difference. It wouldn't be fair to judge Hinch against Pagenaud in this area because he's never had the chance to develop those skills in such an intense environment, but it would be silly to think there isn't a void to fill.

Until he joined SPM, Hinch also had the benefit of a veteran teammate (Servia at Newman/Haas) or a big pool of teammates (at Andretti) to share the development load. Now, at SPM, and as its team leader, the responsibility falls in his shoulders to shape the technical side of its Dallara-Honda package. From a comparative perspective, there's no way Hinch brings what Pagenaud had on the R&D front. It won't happen overnight, but he will get there.

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