Bad breaks hobble Hinchcliffe, Pigot at St. Pete

Sometimes the box score really doesn't do justice to a race driver and Sunday in St. Peterburg was a good example.

James Hinchcliffe started third, made a nifty outside pass of polesitter Will Power for the lead but then got a terrible break with a caution flag and had to settle for ninth place.

Spencer Pigot charged from 13th to fifth before a brake rotor exploded and he finished next-to-last in 20th place.

After searching for some outside grip going into Turn 1 during morning warm-up, HInch put it to use on lap six and swept past Power going into Turn 1.

"We had a bit of a tire advantage because I started on the reds but then things unraveled pretty quick," said Hinchcliffe.

He owned a comfortable lead in the Arrow Honda and was getting ready to make his first pit stop under green when the yellow waved on lap 26. And it couldn't have come at a worse time since about half the field had already pitted. Hinch rejoined the race in mid-pack and that's where he stayed.

"Yeah, it was a bad break but we didn't have the car to win today – it just got worse and worse," said Hinchcliffe after climbing out of his car. "We had a slow first stop and then we just lost the handle and the track didn't come to us like it usually does.

"Last year at Toronto we started out poor, caught a lucky yellow and finished strong. Today we started out strong, got unlucky with a yellow and weren't very good at the end. But as far as yellows, that's racing and it happens to everyone – but it was a pretty disappointing result."

Pigot, back for his second season as a road-course/street circuit specialist (plus the Indy 500) for Ed Carpenter, was having the best run of his career as he'd passed Tony Kanaan and Simon Pagenaud (who eventually finished second) and moved into fifth place before his disaster.

"I just passed (Alex) Rossi, Kanaan and Pagenaud and I think the brake rotor blew," said Pigot. "The wheel was on fire there for a moment and that was it. It's too bad I seemed to be better on tire degradation than they were.

"I passed a lot of guys without moving up because of crashes so it was nice to do that right off the bad at the start of the season. It's good to see all the work we did in the off-season to close the gap has paid off."

The 2015 Indy Lights' champion knows this season is an audition to stay in the series and he outperformed teammate JR Hildebrand all weekend.

"That's one of my goals this season, to show the team I belong in a full-time ride," he added. "We need to qualify better and race better, which I think we did."