James Hinchcliffe 'In a Good Spot' as Member of NBC Broadcast Team

There’s no question James Hinchcliffe would love to be back in a race car for this Sunday’s 106th Running of the Indianapolis 500.

But the veteran IndyCar driver intends on sharing all he knows about the race car, the race track and most importantly, the biggest race in the world itself, in his new role as an IndyCar analyst on NBC Sports.

“It's very different,” Hinchcliffe told Autoweek. “Obviously, there's something super special and unique about this place. And from a driver's perspective, when you're showing up here every day for the month, you got those butterflies in your stomach, you never quite know what to expect, and if you’ll have a good day on the track.

“It's obviously so great to get to come to the track every day, you don't have that feeling in your stomach from having to get onto a broadcast. It's a lot of fun, what I'm doing now. I'm really enjoying it, but there's no doubt it's been a bit of a transition just kind of getting used to what life's like in the month of May when you don't have to worry about being in the race car.”

But even though he doesn’t have to get behind the wheel, there are still similar elements when he steps in front of a TV camera.

“There are definitely elements of it that I miss every day,” Hinchcliffe said. “But there are a lot of elements that I don't at the same time, and so that's how I know I'm in a good spot and I'm happy where I'm at.

“I looked at everybody do their qualifying runs over the weekend and there were sometimes where you wish you could go out there and give it a crack. And then you see someone have a big wiggle and you're like, ‘Oh, I'm glad that wasn't me.’ It's kind of a double-edged sword in that sense.”

When Hinchcliffe was hired by NBC, essentially replacing Paul Tracy, there had been extensive discussion about having a historic dynamic of potentially having Hinchcliffe racing in the Indy 500 while also broadcasting from the cockpit.

“It was a real conversation, something we were looking into, but ultimately it was always going to come down to the fact that I wasn't going to get into a program that I didn't think was capable of winning,” Hinchcliffe said. “I didn't want to be in the race just to be in the race, I didn't want to be a field filler.

“And when we started looking into what the options were, there was just nothing appealing enough to get back into the car for it. Had we found a ride, then yeah, for sure. I think we kind of had a lot of fun with that concept of kind of the in-race reporter.”

While that chance won’t happen this year, Hinchcliffe already has a head start on potentially doing it in next year’s 500.

“Absolutely, I mean, I think this whole deal with NBC came together on the later side, by that point, like I said, there weren't really the right rides available,” Hinchcliffe said. “So now that we have a better sense of everything and timelines, we start those conversations now and see what options are available for 2023.”

Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski