Longtime friends and Canadian countrymen James Hinchcliffe, 30, and Robert Wickens, 27, hatched a plan this offseason that will see the pair of drivers swap rides for a day.
Hinchcliffe, driver of the No. 5 Arrow Electronics Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda, will get to drive Wickens’ No. 6 HWA AG Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM car in Vallelunga, Italy on March 17 after he makes his first IndyCar start of the new year at St. Petersburg on March 12.
Meanwhile Wickens will have the opportunity to sample Hinchcliffe’s IndyCar for the first time at Sebring International Raceway’s short course next week on February 28, and return to his open-wheel roots.
This test for Wickens will occur a day before SPM runs rookies Luis Michael Dorrbecker and Luis Felipe “Pipo” Derani on March 1, in their maiden tests as well.
The cliff notes, “PG” version, of the idea is below.
“We were on the beach in Turks drinking... ginger ales... and we thought it’d be great to drive each other’s cars,” Wickens said in a video released today confirming the switch.
You can see a video of Wickens training at PitFit Training in Indianapolis, below.
Good to have @robertwickens in for #DTM season prep. RW pushing hard w/ @fitlighttraining reactive #core training. #pitfitstrong pic.twitter.com/NmHgJ6ZtUB
— PitFitInc (@PitFitInc) February 22, 2017
@Hinchtown Are you sure you trust me with your car that close to St.Pete?! Can't wait to give it a go! https://t.co/afumJIZpqf
— Robert Wickens (@robertwickens) February 23, 2017
.@robertwickens ok, now you mention it... https://t.co/jisqDil0jw
— James Hinchcliffe (@Hinchtown) February 23, 2017
Wickens was arguably one of open-wheel’s best prospects - perhaps even slightly higher rated than Hinchcliffe - as the two were growing in their careers. They’ve competed as teammates for Team Canada in the 2007-2008 A1GP season and as rivals, Wickens with Red Bull Forsythe Racing and Hinchcliffe with Sierra Sierra Enterprises, in the 2007 Formula Atlantic season. Wickens also made a couple later cameo appearances in North America thereafter before moving to Europe, supported by Red Bull, where he won the 2011 Formula Renault 3.5 World Series (a year after Hinchcliffe’s Schmidt Peterson Motorsports teammate, Mikhail Aleshin, did).
Despite being on Formula 1’s doorstep and testing with the Virgin team, he never got a proper chance at the series. Instead, he’s gone onto race-winning and championship-contending success with Mercedes in DTM.
FORT WORTH, TX - JUNE 10: James Hinchcliffe of Canada, driver of the #5 ARROW Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Chevrolet, sits in his car during practice for the Verizon IndyCar Series Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 10, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway)
Robert Laberge
Incidentally, both drivers were back in North America racing at the start of this year, in the 55th Rolex 24 at Daytona. Hinchcliffe competed in the Prototype class for Mazda Motorsports while Wickens was in the Prototype Challenge class with Starworks Motorsport.
“You have to take it just as seriously as one of your own races,” Hinchcliffe told NBC Sports at the time. “It’s crazy how much effort goes into this. I really see that sort of month of May fever around all the IMSA teams when you pull up to Daytona for the month of January, so to speak, because you start at the Roar in the beginning, then thrash on the cars for two weeks and then you come back and do a 24-hour race.”
Now, the longtime friends will be putting in their first days in their new cars in a unique ride swap opportunity.
“This whole thing is something that Robbie and I have joked about for a long time because, frankly, we weren’t sure it was ever going to happen,” Hinchcliffe said. “We both had an interest in kind of sharing our series with each other, and we kept talking about it. We decided we were going to try and take a swing at it, talked to all parties involved and amazingly it all worked out.
“It’s just a cool story; you’ve got two kids that grew up racing go-karts in Ontario,” Hinchcliffe added. “Fast forward a decade and a half, and here we are both professional racing drivers. To be able to get to do this, and share it with each other, is going to be awesome.”