James Hinchcliffe admitted that he did not have the pace to finish third around the streets of Toronto but due to a good strategy call and fuel saving skills, he claimed the final position on the podium on Sunday.
The home hero struggled in the early stages of the race and was towards the back of the field at one point, but the Schmidt Peterson Motorsport driver recovered superbly to manage his fuel over the final 25-laps to take third spot.
Hinchcliffe moves back into the top ten in the points standings as a result of his Toronto result, and felt it was about time he caught a good break in front of his home fans.
“As we’re coming out of that last restart, I saw everybody in the last section get to their feet and I was just hoping I didn’t screw it up,” said Hinchcliffe. “It was obviously a great day to have a good day and for once we caught a lucky break in Toronto.
“I’m not going to lie and sit here say we had third place pace. We really struggled on blacks in the middle stint. But as the cloud cover came out in that last stint, the track really kind of came to us so we had to save fuel. The car was there. Can’t thank Arrow Electronics and the Schmidt Peterson guys enough.”
