James Hinchcliffe
No. 5 Arrow Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda
“Starting side-by-side with [teammate] Marcus [Ericsson], we decided to split the tire strategy. It’s funny – coming into the last stint, we converged almost identically. We didn’t have quite as good pace on the blacks [Firestone primary tires], but the Arrow car felt really good on the reds. Marcus and I pitted, I think, from seventh and eighth almost together near the end with sticker reds [Firestone alternate tires]. There were a couple of guys in front of us with scrubbed reds and they definitely were falling off more than our’s were, so we were looking at a solid top 10, maybe even flirting with a top five today. Which, given where we started, would have been a great result.
“Unfortunately, I got caught up in the incident with Felix [Rosenqvist], and it’s unfortunate, we had a really good battle back and forth, so it shows that Circuit of The Americas can put on a good race… Ultimately a bit of a racing incident in Turn 19; I feel bad for Felix – he was having a good race as well. Proud of the Arrow SPM boys, not the result we wanted, certainly, but from where we started, I think we rebounded nicely. Had we not got caught up in that incident, and Marcus not have a problem in pit lane, I think both cars would have been toward the top of the leaderboard.”
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
