James Hinchcliffe will compete on home soil for the first time this season holding the points lead in the 2008 Cooper Tires Presents The Atlantic Championship as Circuit Mont-Tremblant hosts round three of the season this weekend.
The 21-year-old dominated last month's second round at Laguna Seca, powering the Forsythe Pettit Racing #3 INDECK/TireRack.com Swift Mazda-Cosworth to victory having blitzed the timesheets and set a new series track record along the way. Hinchcliffe's second career Atlantic victory put the Canadian into the series lead ahead of round one winner, Swiss female Simona De Silvestro.
The six week gap in the schedule between Laguna Seca and Tremblant failed to slow Hinchcliffe down off-track as he attended the Indy 500 and then worked as co-commentator for the ‘
F1 in Cinemas' broadcast of the Canadian Grand Prix.
“We've had a really long break between events so I'm just ecstatic to be getting back behind the wheel,” he said. “The fact that our first race back is in my home country and at one of the nicest race tracks in North America I think is really an extra bonus for everyone racing in the series. Last year I had a pretty decent result at Tremblant with third place but to be honest I never felt like we really had the car where I needed it to be. I'm really hoping that this year I'll have a stronger car from the off.
“Hopefully Friday's extra practice time will allow us to get our heads around everything before Saturday's qualifying runs. This is only my second event working with Mike Palowski, my engineer, so we're still learning about each other and what we like to get out of the car as a team. The extra track time on Friday I'm sure will prove valuable to us.
“Obviously I'm hoping I can leave Tremblant with another victory and give the home crowd something to enjoy and extend my championship lead some more!”
![James Hinchcliffe - Forsythe Racing [Pic credit: TNT Images]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/459243.jpg)
