Franchitti wins; Hinchcliffe top Canadian with 14th-place finish at Honda Indy

TORONTO – It was a tough day for Canadian drivers at the Honda Indy Toronto on Sunday as all three were involved in incidents that left them well back of the pack for most of the race.
    
Toronto rookie James Hinchcliffe had the best result of the trio with a 14th-place finish in a race that had little flow due to the steady stream of caution flags. Hinchcliffe was involved in a five-car collision late in the race that knocked him out of contention.
    
It was Hinchcliffe’s first start at Exhibition Place with IndyCar after years on the lower-tier circuits and a lifetime as a local fan watching from the grandstands.
    
“It was a blast,” Hinchcliffe said. “When we got ourselves back up into the top 10 there and we were running top rookie and top Canadian and doing a decent job, I was going to be pretty happy with our recovery.
    
“It’s just an unfortunate incident, I’m not quite sure what happened with Justin (Wilson) and Oriol (Servia) there. I nearly cleared them but just not quite.”
    
Hinchcliffe had started from the No. 13 position. Toronto veteran Paul Tracy was 16th while Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, Que., didn’t finish.
    
Hinchcliffe, who touched tires with Tracy midway through the race, said he’s trying to earn respect in his rookie season with Sprott/Newman/Haas Racing.
    
“It’s not just Paul, I’ve got to prove to all these guys that I’m here to race,” Hinchcliffe said. “I’m not going to back down if I think it’s my corner. … I’ve got to make sure that people know I’m going to hold my ground too.”
    
Hinchcliffe, 24, is enjoying a decent campaign. His best finish this season was fourth at the Toyota Grand Prix in Long Beach, Calif., and he also raced to a respectable ninth in Sao Paulo.
    
Hinchcliffe picked up victories last year in Long Beach, Edmonton and Chicagoland and finished second overall in the Indy Lights championship for Team Moore Racing. He said he enjoyed performing in front of his hometown fans and many family members who were in attendance.
    
“I’m super-happy with our performance,” Hinchcliffe said. “We had a problem in qualifying that hit our speed a little bit. I think we should have started a little bit higher and that would have been good. In our pace in the race, we were good on primes (tires), we were good on alternates, we were passing people, we were keeping up with people. The team did good stops.
    
“So overall other than the finish, right up until about six laps to go, we were having a really good race.”

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TORONTO – Dario Franchitti survived a crash-filled race to win his third Honda Indy Toronto title Sunday.
    
The Scottish driver held off Graham Rahal on a late restart, then beat teammate Scott Dixon on the 1.75-mile temporary street course at Exhibition Place while Ryan Hunter-Reay finished third.
    
Franchitti previously won the event in 2009 and 1999 and increased his lead atop the IZOD IndyCar points standings to 353, 55 more than rival Will Power. It was Franchitti’s 30th career win, and his fourth of the season.
    
Franchitti got a lucky break when his collision with Power knocked the defending champion out of contention on the race’s 25th anniversary.
    
As he chased Power into a corner on the 57th lap, Franchitti nudged Power into a spin that stalled the pole-sitter’s car. Franchitti kept going, while Power had to try to recover from 18th. There was initial confusion about whether or not Franchitti’s Target Chip Ganassi team had repealed a drive-through penalty, but race officials later said the incident had been reviewed and no penalty had been handed out.
    
“I’m always racing clean, he’s always racing dirty. …,” Power told the Versus network during the race.
“He never gets a penalty from IndyCar. Just not right.”