James Hinchcliffe, a former IndyCar Series driver and now an analyst for FOX Sports, during his Formula 1 test with Haas F1 at Mugello, Italy.
FOX Sports Photo
McLaren has already locked up the prized Constructors Championship in Formula 1, but the 2026 World Drivers Championship will be settled this weekend in Abu Dhabi. McLaren’s Lando Norris can clinch the championship with a podium finish (top three). Norris can also win the championship if he finishes fourth and Max Verstappen of Red Bull does not win the race.
Verstappen has to win the race and hope Norris finishes outside the top three to claim another World Championship.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri’s chances are much more narrow. He has to win the race and hope Norris finishes sixth place of lower.
Former IndyCar Series star and current FOX Sports IndyCar analyst James Hinchcliffe is in Abu Dhabi to call the action for F1TV.
After driving a Formula 1 car for the first time on September 26 at the Mugello Circuit in Italy, Hinchcliffe can offer better insight into the performance of the car.
I had an exclusive interview with Hinchcliffe for Forbes SportsMoney last month to discuss his thrill of driving a Formula 1 car for Haas F1.
“An incredible opportunity with Haas and can’t thank them enough for giving me the chance to test an F1 machine for the first time,” Hinchcliffe told me in the interview. “It was a two-year-old car, so it is part of the current regulation set. I was pretty blown away with what that car was capable of and in some ways made me want to try one again and get a few more laps to try to really find the limits.
“It was a bucket list thing, a childhood dream come true, whatever you want to call it with all those cliches, but really a cool opportunity having not been in that type of car before.”
James Hinchcliffe Describes The F1 Ride
Hinchcliffe understands driving a high-powered Indy car in a career that ran from 2011 to 2021. He won six NTT IndyCar Series races including three in 2013. He won just one pole, but it was a big one – he was the fastest qualifier for the 100th Indianapolis 500 in 2016.
Hinchcliffe has also competed in Sports Cars, including the famed Rolex 24 at Daytona.
But a Formula 1 car is a different beast. It is the most technologically advanced car in competitive racing and has incredible acceleration and braking that no other race car can match.
Hinchcliffe was able to quickly adapt to the higher G-forces and performance of the Haas F1 car.
“It’s like riding a bike,” Hinchcliffe admitted. “You think you could take this corner or that corner, and I really had to recalibrate my expectations after those first couple laps because the potential in it was just so much higher than what I was expecting.
“The force on the body is very, very intense. What’s funny, though, is with power steering, it’s less physical in some ways than an Indy car. But certain parts of the body get stressed more, the way your legs get tossed around in the car because of the G forces.”
The strain on the neck is something Hinchcliffe expected. However, he was surprised at how much his legs bounced around when he drove the F1 car on the race course.
“I did what I could to train my neck ahead of time,” the FOX Sports analyst admitted. “I luckily had a few months’ notice for this test. I did what I could.”
James Hinchcliffe’s Test Day Wet And Wild
Hinchcliffe’s day in the car, however, was hampered by rain as he spent most of his track time on a wet race course. But after the track dried and the team put on the regular racing slicks, the speed and performance of the car increased dramatically, giving Hinchcliffe a sense of F1’s “pain in the neck.”
James Hinchliffe walks through the grid as he prepares to test the Haas F1 car on September 26, 2026 at the Mugello Circuit in Mugello, Italy.
HaasF1 Photo
“My neck was fine because most of the day when I was in the wet,” he said. “Had my whole session been in the dry, I would have been in pretty rough shape the next day.”
Well versed in many forms of racing, Hinchcliffe’s time in the Haas F1 machine was part of a pre-race feature for the F1 event at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) near Austin, Texas. It remains available online on YouTube and the F1TV App.
The experience allowed Hinchcliffe to become a better analyst.
“For me, I get to use that knowledge every week that I work on that series, just having a better understanding of the car and the processes and procedures that go into a practice session, a qualifying run, a race,” Hinchcliffe explained. “It’s been a great opportunity for me to wrap my head around that last little bit of the sport that I was previously in the dark about just because I had never raced in Formula 1.”
The Haas F1 test came to reality through two different scenarios. The first was a conversation Hinchcliffe had with his boss at F1TV who thought it would be cool to do a feature on what it is like in an F1 car from an outsider’s perspective. Hinchcliffe had success as an IndyCar driver, and it would be a unique bridge because of his outsider’s perspective as a professional racer.
“I’m commentating on this sport, I’m analyzing this sport, but I’ve never actually driven the car,” Hinchcliffe said. “I thought it would make a fun feature but also make it better for me in terms of the information that I have and can relate to the audience.”
Haas F1 Team Principal Ayao Komatsu walks in the Paddock prior to practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 24, 2024 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
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The next conversation that made it happen was with Ayao Komatsu, the team principal at Haas F1.
“Ayao loved the idea,” Hinchcliffe said. “I thought it would be great exposure for the team, but also, just great for me to have that opportunity.
“Amazingly, the stars all aligned. I never in a million years thought we would have been able to pull it off, but amazingly we were.”
The sensation of driving the Haas F1 car gave Hinchcliffe incredible insight.
“My biggest surprise was when the car is laterally loaded, how aggressively you could still get to power without the back end stepping out or the front end taking off into an understeer,” Hinchcliffe explained. “The grip and the cornering potential in those cars is very impressive. I had to recalibrate what you thought was possible.
“I used the analogy that it’s what I imagine early pilots had to do. You had to believe that this plane was going to stay up in the sky. I had to believe that this car was going to stay stuck to the track. All the drivers that talked to me about what it was going to be like even was way beyond that.
“I don’t think anything really can replace the feeling of the first time you’re piling into Turn 1 at Indianapolis with 32 other lunatics in the Indianapolis 500. That one’s a pretty unique and pretty special feeling. But in the same vein, it’s tough to put into words. People can try to tell you about it, try to talk, but you don’t know what it’s like until you experience it for yourself.”
James Hinchcliffe’s Career Path Took Him To IndyCar, Not Formula 1
As a youngster growing up in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, Ontario, Hinchcliffe was fascinated with auto racing. But he dreamed of competing in CART and IndyCar, not Formula 1.
Becoming a Formula One driver was never his dream in racing.
“Honestly, it really wasn’t,” Hinchcliffe admitted. “My focus was always actually IndyCar. I loved the series so much. I felt so connected to it because I’ve been going to IndyCar races since I was a kid.
“I followed Formula 1. I was a fan of Formula 1, but I never really harbored a lot of desire to pivot and go over there and try that.”
James Hinchcliffe (left) with Haas F1 driver Oliver Bearman during the test session at Mugello Circuit in Mugello, Italy.
FOX Sports Photo
Hinchcliffe had a brief opportunity when he was 17. He had just finished competing in Formula BMW in North America and it went well for the popular kid. So well, that BMW offered Hinchcliffe to opportunity to compete in the BMW series in England, considered the most competitive developmental series in F1 at that time.
“That would have been the time to do it,” Hinchcliffe reflected. “If I was going to try to take a serious stab at getting to Formula 1, you’ve got to be over in Europe, especially back then.
“It’s a little more structured today, as is the ‘Road to Indy,’ which was a little more disjointed back then, but that was certainly the time to do it.
“My family and I took a good hard look at it and thought about it but ultimately decided that I wanted to plant my flag in North America and continue the IndyCar quest.
“For me, Formula 1 has always been something I’ve had a huge fanning for and a lot of respect for, but it was never really a goal in my career.”
James Hinchcliffe’s Racing Path
Hinchcliffe’s IndyCar focus took him on a path that included A1GP in 2006-07 and 2007-08, and Formula Atlantic from 2006 to 2008. He finished fourth in Formula Atlantic in both the 2007 and 2008 seasons.
James Hinchcliffe of Canada celebrates after winning the IndyCar Series Sao Paulo indy 300 on May 5, 2013 in the streets of Sao Paulo in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)
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In February 2008, Champ Car ceased operation and most of its teams joined the Indy Racing League to create today’s IndyCar Series. Hinchcliffe adapted by competing in Indy Lights (now known as INDY NXT By Firestone) in 2009 and 2010.
He joined Newman/Haas Racing as an IndyCar rookie in 2011 and won Rookie of the Year honors. He moved over to Andretti Autosport in 2012 and had the best season of his career in 2013 with three wins and an eighth-place finish in the standings. In 2015, he moved over to Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, survived a near-fatal crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during practice for the 99th Indianapolis 500 in May and returned to racing action for the entire 2016 season.
McLaren bought into Sam Schmidt’s and Ric Peterson’s IndyCar in 2019, and Hinchcliffe was out during the offseason. He returned to Andretti for a limited schedule in 2020 and drove the full 2021 season for Andretti Steinbrenner Autosport before his career came to a screeching halt.
End Of One Career, Start Of TV Career For Hinchcliffe
Hinchcliffe’s time in racing was not over, he simply switched gears.
Hinchcliffe has an extremely engaging personality making him one of the most popular characters in the paddock. He was a natural for TV and NBC Sports hired him as a color analyst for IndyCar and IMSA races.
FOX Sports was the big winner in negotiations for IndyCar’s TV rights in June 2024 and Hinchcliffe moved over to FOX to continue his role in the TV booth in 2025.
James Hinchcliffe (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
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Hinchcliffe also is part of F1TV, making him one of the most active broadcasters in motorsports.
Formula 1 is hugely popular in Canada and continues to solidify its base in the United States.
“Canada is full of people from all over the world and Formula 1 is a globally popular sport,” Hinchcliffe said. “It has always had a big following there.”
Hinchcliffe is also part of the team creating success for IndyCar as FOX Sports just completed an outstanding season of ratings increases in the series that includes the Indianapolis 500.
“We are super excited, super proud of this year, with FOX and IndyCar and everything that we managed to accomplish,” Hinchcliffe said. “And that’s just Year One. We were laying the groundwork for how to grow this sport and how to grow those numbers. And this is going to be, an exciting opportunity in 2026, especially with the World Cup Championship match lead in for the Nashville race in July.”
James Hinchcliffe can now speak with authority on another subject after getting his chance to test a Formula 1 car for Haas F1.
James Hinchcliffe behind the wheel of the Haas F1 machine during his test at Mugello Circuit in Mugello, Italy.
FOX Sports Photo
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucemartin/2025/12/05/as-formula-1-stages-final-race-james-hinchcliffe-describes-f1-test/
