Hinchcliffe takes first GPLB Indy Lights win

James Hinchcliffe

James Hinchcliffe had some fancy new shoes with the word "stop" and "go" on the left and right foot respectively. It seemed he only needed the right foot today though as he won the Indy Lights race at the Grand Prix of Long Beach, essentially unchallenged.

Hinchcliffe took the early lead and was barely challenged at the start, with all kind of shuffling and dicing going on behind him, including an amazing rear-snap/slide by Junior Straus that he caught and brought a loud collective "Ooooh" to the crowd, with a superhuman save, and still making the turn-in for turn one, and getting by Tonis Kasemets a couple of turns later.

Tonis is putting in a strong performance this weekend, having never ever caught the scent of an Indy Lights car.

After an early yellow that had Straus dropping out from contact, Hinch kept the lead with Kimball seeming to simply bide his time in second for a while, with Vernay right behind.

Hinchcliffe started to stretch out his lead around the halfway mark as Vernay started to harass Kimball a bit, slowing the both of them down in the fight.

The order remained more or less static with 11 laps to go, when the yellow came out on Campos Jr. clouted the outside wall in turn one.

Action resumed on lap 38, with another incident in turn 2 that brought the yellow right out again.

The green didn't come back until there were but 4 laps to go. Kimball managed to draw in on Hinchcliffe and have a look or two, but not enough to make a move. He got a great launch out of the hairpin and took a look down the inside but still couldn't make a solid move.

Another yellow came out with an overly optimistic move back in the pack, setting up a white/green flag finish with Hinchcliffe taking the win, follow by Kimball, and Vernay on the podium.

Rank	No	Name	Laps	Gap	Diff	Best Lap	Best Lap Time	Comment
1	2	James Hinchcliffe	45	–.—-	–.—-	28	1:15.3235
2	26	Charlie Kimball	45	0.8370	0.8370	29	1:15.3320
3	7	JK Vernay	45	0.3921	1.2291	21	1:15.3439
4	29	Sebastian Saavedra	45	1.6835	2.9126	29	1:15.4594
5	27	Martin Plowman	45	1.5609	4.4735	29	1:15.3546
6	35	Tonis Kasemets	45	6.2023	10.6758	23	1:16.0655
7	49	Philip Major	45	1.1552	11.8310	8	1:16.2091
8	11	Pippa Mann	45	0.3253	12.1563	19	1:16.2943
9	37	Niall Quinn	45	5.6836	17.8399	24	1:16.7771
10	4	Carmen Jorda	45	1.8802	19.7201	27	1:17.0297
11	5	Joel Miller	45	0.9252	20.6453	25	1:16.7579
12	77	James Winslow	43	2 laps	2 laps	30	1:16.1421	Contact
13	40	Dan Clarke	39	4 laps	6 laps	14	1:16.1250
14	10	Gustavo Yacaman	37	2 laps	8 laps	28	1:16.1515	Contact
15	22	Adrian Campos Jr	33	4 laps	12 laps	18	1:16.2835	Contact
16	18	Rodrigo Barbosa	27	6 laps	18 laps	12	1:18.0755	Handling
17	28	Stefan Wilson	21	6 laps	24 laps	12	1:16.0575	Electrical
18	6	Junior Strous	9	12 laps	36 laps	5	1:16.7300	Contact

Race Statistics
Time of Race: 1:03:41.4082
Winners average speed: 83.429
Margin of victory: 0.8370 of a second
Cautions: 4 for 8 laps
Lead changes: 0
Lap Leaders: Hinchcliffe 1-45
Point Standings: Vernay 140, Kimball 112, Hinchcliffe 99, Plowman 90, Saavedra 85, Wilson 76, Yacaman 68, Major 62, Winslow 59, Mann 59.