Incredible IndyCar slide-turned-save

Getting your hands crossed-up while driving an IndyCar means something has gone wrong.

If you want your car to be stuck to the track, you want to be moving pretty quickly, and that’s not a time for rapid, wild hand movements.

Unless, that is, your car has just slid sideways any you’re doing everything you can to stop it.

Sure, there’s no visual spectacle like you’d see from a more ‘car-like’ racer, but when you’re hitting 300km/h through a corner, any loss of traction might as well mean you’ve already spun.

Canadian James Hinchcliffe was praised after this race for executing ‘the save of the year’, which meant he was able to carry on racing at a relatively competitive pace.

That is, until he got into another predicament about 20 laps later. This one wasn’t able to be saved.

Hinchcliffe’s front wheel nudged American J.R. Hildebrand’s rear wheel and sent the two spiralling out of control.

Hildebrand even said a bad word.

However, after the race, neither blamed the other, rather accepting that in the situation the outcome was probably unavoidable.

It’s always disappointing to see a driver not get to complete a race, though neither would have been as sore as Texan Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Hunter-Reay found himself hitting the barrier at a reported 139G during qualifying after a spin put his car backwards.

Watching that is a good way to realise how good Hinchcliffe’s save really was.

But after a lot of bad news from Ponoco, a silver lining rears its wonderful head for Australians – a Queenslander by the name of Will Power took out the top spot, driving for Team Penske.