With a last lap, last corner pass on Takuma Sato, James Hinchcliffe would pick up his second IndyCar Series victory in the Italpava Sao Pauo Indy 300.
“There’s no cooler way to win a race — in the last corner of the last lap,” Hinchcliffe commented. “Takuma was making that race car really wide and he was defending the inside pretty well, almost too well a couple times. He just outbroke himself just a little bit and I was able to do a high-low (pass) and got the win.”
It marks Hinchcliffe’s first top 15 finish since his win at St. Petersburg earlier this year as he has failed to finish the past two races.
It also marks the third win in four races this year for Andretti Autosport after Hunter-Reay’s win at Barber Motorsports Park.
“That’s IndyCar racing,” Michael Andretti said. “That’s what it’s about. It seems that so many of these races go down the last turn of the last lap. That’s what makes this such a great sport. I’m glad we came out on the good end of the stick for sure.”
Sato would finish second for his second straight podium after winning at Long Beach.
“Hinch did a great job and the guys did a good job,” Sato said. “Today we started from 12th so it was a really solid day for us. It was a great, great race, and we’re carrying good momentum into Indianapolis. ”
Marco Andretti would finish third for his second podium finish of the year.
“It was a lot of fun,” Andretti said. “It was dicey at some points. Really it was just about conserving the push-to-passes for when it counts. At the end I was kind of using it when people weren’t expecting me to use it so I could kind of snooker them. Looking from practice 1, I’m quite pleased with where we ended up today. Congratulations to the Go Daddy crew. The RC Cola car is looking good in points now.”
Oriol Servia and Josef Newgarden rounded out the top five. EJ Viso finished sixth, followed by Dario Franchitti, Simona de Silvestro, Simon Pagenaud and Charlie Kimball. Last year’s series champion and pole sitter Ryan Hunter-Reay would finish 11th.
