James Hinchcliffe wins the Grand Prix of Long Beach

Almost two years to the day he won his last IndyCar race, James Hinchcliffe returned to the podium with an unlikely victory at the 43rd Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Hinchcliffe had never finished better than third at Long Beach as part of the IndyCar circuit, and Sunday marked his fifth-ever win overall. He started from the fourth position and stayed in the mix when other drivers made aggressive moves or fell off, culminating in a relatively stress-free 1.494-second margin of victory after 25 laps led.

Hinchcliffe’s two-year dry spell was largely the result of a catastrophic injury during a practice at the 2015 Indianapolis 500 that almost took his life.

“A lot has changed since the last time we were sitting up here, and it’s just so nice to be back,” Hinchcliffe said. “To do it here and finally hit this place, a track that I love so much, a track that has been very good to me and my career and one that I think is the Indy 500 of street tracks … it makes this a really special event.”

In that Indianapolis practice session, a piece of the suspension on Hinchcliffe’s car pierced his leg, which caused massive blood loss. He missed the rest of the season, but returned in 2016.

“Everyone knows James’ story at Indianapolis — it’s an amazing story,” Josef Newgarden said. “It’s a huge credit to what type of racer he is. He’s a die-hard racer through and through, and no one can really question that.”

Right off the start, pole-sitter Helio Castroneves fell back to sixth, unable to hold off top qualifiers such as Scott Dixon and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Attention quickly turned to Will Power and Charlie Kimball, who bumped into each other before Turn 5 of the first lap, causing Kimball to collide into the wall (he was not injured). It was the second straight race in which Kimball couldn’t complete the course.

Castroneves, meanwhile, came up short after winning the pole at Long Beach for a third straight season (he was unsuccessful in those attempts, too). With 19 laps remaining, he was ordered to the back for a second pit speed violation, which essentially ruined his chances. He finished ninth.

There were a few caution flags interspersed throughout the 85 laps (a five-lap increase), but no major crashes. J.R. Hildebrand, who took 11th place, sustained a broken bone in his left hand on the last lap when his car knocked against the car of Mikhail Aleshin.

That there were any slowdowns is a contrast to 2016, in which there were no yellows at Long Beach for the first time since 1989.

“Everyone was kind of on the same strategy last year, which let it play out to not much action, unfortunately,” Newgarden said. “This year, it was a lot more mixed up, I feel like there was more passing. I did way more passing than I’ve done around here in a couple years. I thought it was an exciting race.”

Sebastien Bourdais, the unlikely winner at the season opener in St. Petersburg, Fla., had warned before Long Beach that expectations for his team might have ballooned out of control. But it’s looking increasingly like he’s underestimating himself, as he nailed a second-place finish to help him maintain his early points lead in the IndyCar standings.

“We’re a smaller group and it’s fairly recent, so we’re trying to build something and hopefully we can repeat and create some upsets as much as possible,” Bourdais said.

Newgarden grabbed his best-ever finish at Long Beach in third, followed by Dixon and Simon Pagenaud, the latter of whom took the title here in 2016. Pagenaud’s run on Sunday was particularly remarkable, considering he started in the back of the pack after incurring a penalty for making contact with Castroneves during qualifying.

But fifth place will hardly provide Pagenaud with the jubilation Hinchcliffe — born and raised near Toronto — expressed after emerging from his No. 5 Honda.

“When I came into this sport, I felt a huge responsibility, to be honest, to keep up the good name that Canadian drivers have had in IndyCar,” Hinchcliffe said. “There haven’t been a ton of us, but the ones that have been here have been race winners and contenders week in and week out, year in and year out. I wanted to maintain that record for Canada and not be the guy that lets us down.”

Etc.

Alvaro Parente won the Pirelli World Challenge at Long Beach in his McLaren 650S. Parente held off second-place finisher Patrick Long by 2.860 seconds. Fellow McLaren 650S driver Bryan Sellers ended in third.

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