James Hinchcliffe has closed the open-wheel racing chapter in his life, although he’d welcome a call from Roger Penske asking him to consider driving a fourth entry at next year’s Indianapolis 500.
But until that happens, the six-time IndyCar race winner, polesitter at the 2016 Indy 500 and nine-time participant in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, would like to re-establish his name in sports cars where the Canadian made regular starts from 2006 through 2017. From Grand-Am GTs to Daytona Prototypes to IMSA LMP2s and DPis, to extracurricular fun in the Australian Supercars series and Mazda’s MX-5 Cup, Hinchcliffe wants to put his high-level experience to work in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and has been working for quite a while to make it happen.
“I’ve always had aspirations of pursuing sports cars post-IndyCar,” Hinchcliffe told RACER. “When I started searching at the end of ‘21, we were pretty far down the road with an IMSA team and putting a program together. And for various reasons, that didn’t come together,
“When th at didn’t work out to go straight from IndyCar to IMSA, it was kind of a bummer, but on the other hand, taking a break for a year probably wasn’t the worst thing. That whole year, we were already gearing back up to take another swing at it for 2022 and then, once ag ain, really late in the game, it all fell apart.