James Hinchcliffe: From IndyCar driver to rising F1 star commentator

North American motorsport fans have long been acquainted with James Hinchcliffe. The fan-favorite IndyCar driver and so-called Mayor of Hinchtown has been omnipresent in regional open-wheel for over two decades — but recently, he’s become a voice of Formula 1.

At the Las Vegas Grand Prix, we had a chance to sit down with Hinchcliffe to talk about the transition from active racing to commentary, followed by his move into the Formula 1 space.

James Hinchcliffe: Breaking into the F1 TV world

When James Hinchcliffe announced his retirement from full-time IndyCar competition on December 12, 2021, he had no idea what was next.

Speaking exclusively to PlanetF1.com ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Hinchcliffe admitted that he’d caught the commentary bug long before it became his career path.

“I always knew it’s what I wanted to do,” he said.

“I had this really unique opportunity to do a little bit of commentary when I was in the Atlantic Series on Champ Car at the time, and it was for the international broadcast, so no one in North America heard it.

“But I got to try it out and experience what it was like — and I really enjoyed it.

“I always said, hey, when I’m done driving, this is what I want to do.”

But how to make that transition? And when?

For Hinchcliffe, the pieces started falling into place in 2021. As his challenging IndyCar season rolled through to its midpoint, the Canadian began to imagine what his future would look like with commentary taking over racing as his primary focus.

Nearer to the end of the year, he approached NBC, the station that then broadcast IndyCar, around that time to make a pitch. He’d moonlighted with NBC before, and the network had suggested an offer might be available for a full-time commentary gig as the next step of his career. Now was time to explore that offer.

“The contract got thrown on the table, and it was, ‘it’s here if you want it,'” Hinchcliffe told PlanetF1.com.

Just like that, a weight had been lifted from Hinchcliffe’s shoulders.

Had his racing career not panned out as planned, the Canadian had once considered the idea of becoming a motorsport journalist; at the end of 2021, he was slowly beginning to realize that passion.

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“Ultimately, what it comes down to is, I was a fan of this sport before I ever drove anything,” Hinchcliffe said. “And, look — it’s no secret I’m a talker.

“So you take a thing I like to do and mix it with another thing that I like to do, and it just made sense.”

Hinchcliffe switched gears and began some rigorous preparation for his debut in the booth — a task that was only made all the more challenging when he found out from his co-commentator and former racer Townsend Bell that he’d largely be on your own.

“Townsend called me after the announcement to say congrats, and he goes, ‘I bet you’re expecting some information or maybe some training or something like that,'” he revealed.

“I’m like yeah, when do we start? When do I get indoctrinated into the world of television?

“He’s like, ‘Yeah. That’s not coming.’

“I’m like, they just give an athlete a microphone on a national network television broadcast and say, ‘go’? He said, ‘Yep!'”

The revelation resulted in a “mild panic attack,” with Hinchcliffe instantly emailing NBC to see if the network had amassed any “literature, or literally any information on how to do this, or maybe a training program or something.”

“They emailed back, like, ‘That’s a weird request; we’ve never had that before!'”

NBC sent along some clips of “dos and don’ts” for Hinchcliffe to review, and he launched into a massive research campaign to get himself up to speed and ensure he’d be on his toes. That included putting together driver bios, statistics, charts, and graphs that he could refer to at the season opener. The day he arrived in the booth, he received a packet from the network sharing almost all of the same information.

Hinchcliffe admitted that the first few broadcasts were “rocky” as he learned how to best integrate into the booth alongside fellow commentators Bell and Leigh Diffey — but the latter always took a moment after a race to share some key takeaways and areas of improvement. Before the end of the 2022 season, the flow and camaraderie felt natural.

Then F1 came calling.

“I got a text from Ben Edwards, who was the color commentator for A1GP, and he told me F1TV was looking for a North American voice to throw on the broadcast,” Hinchcliffe explained. “He asked if I’d be interested in having a conversation, and, yeah, obviously I’d be interested.”

In his first season with F1TV, which serves as Formula 1’s in-house streaming service, Hinchcliffe attended three different races. In 2023, that number bumped up to six. Now, with 2024 wrapped, Hinchcliffe was present at eight different Grands Prix.

“F1TV’s philosophy has always been, this is a global broadcast,” Hinchcliffe said. “They bring in people from other countries to kind of mix it up — you know, we have Davide Valsecchhi for the European rounds, and he’s just awesome.

“But with the audience growing in North America the way it’s been, I get why it was important to them.

“From the feedback I’ve seen and heard, it seems to be relatively well received,” he said. “Some Brits don’t like the accent, but hey — that’s part of it!”

While the transition from IndyCar driver to IndyCar commentator felt fairly natural — after all, Hinchcliffe was still working in the same paddock that he’d known intimately for decades — the move to F1 left him feeling like “a fish out of water.”

“I felt like an impostor and expected to be called out frankly a lot more than I was,” he laughed.

The move to Formula 1 took extra research. As Hinchcliffe explained, he was a fan of the racing in F1, but he wasn’t the kind of person to pore over news articles and keep track of every update. Now that he’s acting as something of an authority in the sport, he’s upped the ante considerably — and the support from F1TV has been particularly crucial in that regard.

“The [F1TV] team helped me ingratiate myself into the world here,” he said. “I definitely feel more comfortable than when I started.

“I know more people in the paddock, whether it’s the drivers or the engineers or mechanics or PR people. I’ve learned the procedural stuff — and if I don’t have an answer to something, I can have Jolyon [Palmer] or Ruth [Buscomb-Divey] take it away.”

At the end of the day, though, racing is racing, Hinchcliffe says.

“You can throw me on a NASCAR broadcast or an IMSA broadcast, or an F1 broadcast, and 95% of what I do is transferred if you understand the mentality of the driver,” he explained.

“For some of the nuanced stuff — I may not know exactly how hard it is to maintain tire temps on the C3 compound. I will never know that. But I can talk generally about tire conservation and how a driver does that and what tools they have at their disposal.

“The fundamentals are the same.”

And so far, it seems to be working incredibly well. While Hinchcliffe may have noticed some folks get stuck on his Canadian accent, Formula 1 fans seem to be overwhelmingly positive about his presence, citing his enthusiasm, his insight, and his ability to translate European racing terms into the lingo more familiar with North American racing fans.

Asked about his most rewarding moments as a commentator, he approached his answer with characteristic good humor.

“Not screwing up too bad,” he said, laughing. “Not getting fired. That’s probably the most rewarding part so far.

“But you know, it’s cool being there watching history be made. Watching guys get their first wins. I think those moments are special to be part of.”

When Hinchcliffe and I spoke in Vegas, he was still unclear on his plans for 2025. Formula 1 generally waits until the conclusion of a season before renewing contracts with non-driving talent, and over in America, IndyCar has swapped from NBC to FOX as a broadcasting partner.

Still, he’s confident you’ll find him in a paddock somewhere in the near future.

“The more time I spend here, the better job I think I can do,” Hinchcliffe said. “I just want to do as much of it as I can.”

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