SHANGHAI (AP) -- Fernando Alonso has "no illusions" about his prospects in the Formula One championship despite ending a 12-race drought with a commanding victory at the Chinese Grand Prix.

The dozen races without a win was the Ferrari driver's longest barren period since his winless 2009 season, and represented a sharp change of fortunes after a Did-Not-Finish result at the previous race in Malaysia.

"It couldn't have gone better than this today," Alonso said after Sunday's race. "This has a special feeling because it was a tricky race full of action.

"Along with the second place I got in Australia, this result shows that the car is competitive and that we are working in the right direction to always be in the fight for the podium."

The Spanish driver said he had "pace in his pocket" which he kept in reserve, yet still drove away to a comfortable 10-second victory over Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton hung on for third, just two-tenths of a second ahead of the fast-finishing Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull.

The comfortable nature of the win raised Ferrari's hopes of taking its first drivers' championship since 2007, particularly with the next race coming this weekend in Bahrain, giving rival teams no chance to introduce any significant aerodynamic upgrades in the meantime.

However, the 2013 season is already shaping as one in which fortunes will change from venue to venue depending on the layout of tracks, surfaces and the various team strategies revolving around tires. The Red Bulls were dominant in Malaysia, yet absent from the podium in Shanghai.

"With no one dominating the championship, it makes it extremely interesting, even if we are aware this is only the third race," Alonso said. "We are under no illusions and we must continue to concentrate and do all we can to improve still further."

Vettel still leads the drivers' standings, with his advantage sliced to three points over the consistent Raikkonen. The Finn's second-place finish on Sunday was his 20th consecutive points finish in Formula One, joining Alonso (23) and Michael Schumacher (24) as the only men to achieve that feat.

That string of points finishes appeared to be in serious jeopardy when he ran heavily into the back of Sergio Perez's McLaren early in the race, but remarkably his Lotus lost little pace and the team opted to keep the damaged front wing and nose on the car.

If not for that accident, and a slow start that saw the Finn immediately shuffled down from his second place on the grid to fourth, Raikkonen would have posed a much stronger challenge to Alonso.

"It was quite difficult out there," Raikkonen said of driving with a rearranged front assembly. "The car is not designed like that, otherwise we would use it all the time, but I was surprised how good it was. Of course there were some handling issues, which was not ideal, but we just had to try to live with it and we still had pretty OK speed."

Lotus' trackside operations manager Alan Permane calculated that the damage cost Raikkonen about one-quarter of a second per lap. Given it happened with 40 laps to go, that was 10 seconds in all - precisely the margin behind the race winner.

"Without the poor start and without the incident for Kimi, then we definitely would have fought for a win today," team principal Eric Boullier said. "Kimi showed once more why he's one of the very best drivers in the world by being one of the fastest on track despite sustaining damage to his car."

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- James Hinchcliffe went from finishing first to ... finishing first.

Hinchcliffe got the worst of it when several cars made contact in the opening lap of Sunday's Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, setting off the race's only caution. Then, he said "something let go in the left rear" while he was warming up the tire and he got stuck at Turn 5.

That's where the St. Petersburg race winner spent the rest of the race since there weren't any more cautions allowing him to escape the track. He grumbled after the race he wish he'd followed NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski's lead and had his cell phone inside his car for entertainment.

"It was just shockingly painful and frustrating, because we were only four corners from pit lane," Hinchliffe said. "I mean, I could almost see pit lane. And you're watching everybody else just palling around and having a great time. You never want to watching, especially when you're sitting in a car right beside the race track watching.

"It's tough but the crew kept me smiling over the radio. We were having some fun banter, just trying to make light of the situation because at that point, that's all you can do."

Hinchcliffe had hoped for a much better follow-up to his first IndyCar victory two weeks ago.

Instead, he completed all of three laps after starting back in the 20th spot in what became a rough weekend all around. He didn't advance in qualifying and accused Will Power of blocking him and spoiling his lap, which Power denied.

Hinchcliffe was still smiling once he got clear of the car and made it back to the trailer. That's how racing goes sometimes, after all.

"The highest of highs and the lowest of lows, that's what this sport's all about," he said. "Unfortunately, every driver on earth, you're going to lose more races than you win. That's a statistical fact. But it's the good days like two weeks ago that keep you plowing through the bad days. We still have 17 races to go. We've got a lot of time left to have some good days."

Meanwhile, IndyCar said it left Hinchcliffe on the track because it didn't want to extend the caution period just to get him towed back to pit lane.

He was hooked to the tow truck when series officials noticed his car was missing one wheel, and they didn't want to risk further damage to his car. Hinchcliffe said his team was "happy to keep going."

"At the same time we were getting ready to go green as the track was clear so Race Control made the decision to leave the No. 27 car, and try to bring it back during the next yellow, which never happened," IndyCar said.

Scott Dixon, who was left on course for a large portion of last year's race at Long Beach, could understand Hinchcliffe's frustration. He said he was grateful a fan brought him an umbrella when he was stranded last year "so I could sort of cool off a bit."

But Dixon said the rule book is confusing.

"The rules state, they will tow you back till the last 10 laps of the race, so I don't know what the deal is with that," Dixon said. "I know I was (mad) when that happened to me, and Hinch should be as well. There's a whole lot of the race to go. I thought they were going to tow him back, but we already had a yellow ... I think they get worried about these yellows being too long.

"It needs to be in the rule book or they need to tow you back."

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- James Hinchcliffe watched the 2011 season-opening race at St. Petersburg from the sidelines because he didn't have a deal yet to drive in the IndyCar Series. Out of work again at the end of the year when his race team closed its doors, the Canadian was pondering his future in the Indianapolis house he shared with a bunch of roommates when his big break finally came.

Michael Andretti was on the phone in need of a driver to fill Danica Patrick's seat. The ride had gone to Dan Wheldon, who signed to drive the GoDaddy car for Andretti Autosport but was killed shortly after in the 2011 season finale at Las Vegas.

Hinchcliffe was both honored and humbled - feelings that came flooding back Sunday when it all came full circle for him as he picked up his first career victory on the street course in Wheldon's adopted hometown of St. Pete.

"This is his hometown; this is his car," said Hinchcliffe, who will be added now to the Wheldon monument unveiled Thursday at Turn 10 on the course. "Knowing my face will be on that memorial, that's really special."

He drove the bright green No. 27 to the win in front of Wheldon's wife, two sons, and sister, who have become like family to him and gave him the blessing to accept the job when Andretti called.

"It was a tremendous amount of responsibility I felt to honor Dan and do a good enough job to honor what he would have done in this car," Hinchcliffe said. "So to get the first win here in his hometown with his family here, who I've grown quite close to, it means so much more, to be honest. There's nowhere that I would have rather had my first win I don't think in this car than right here in St. Pete."

Hinchcliffe passed Helio Castroneves on the final restart to take the lead and held on to win by 1.09 seconds over the defending race winner. He became the first Canadian to win since Paul Tracy's 2007 victory at Cleveland in the CART Series, and Hinchcliffe waved the Canadian flag as he climbed from his car.

The win showed Andretti didn't lose a step over the offseason, when the organization turned it up a notch even after Ryan Hunter-Reay's championship.

It paid off Sunday when Hinchcliffe got the first IndyCar win for sponsor GoDaddy, who was with Patrick in the series before her 2012 move to NASCAR, and it was the 44th win for the organization.

The team also celebrated Marco Andretti's third-place finish, and was satisfied with new addition E.J. Viso's seventh-place finish considering he came back from a hard crash in Saturday's practice after his suspension failed. Hunter-Reay might have also been in the mix if not for a mechanical problem.

"We worked so hard over the winter because we knew it was going to be that much harder to be competitive this year," team owner Michael Andretti said. "To come out the way we did, I think all weekend all of our cars were showing they had strength.

"For Hinch, especially, he just was on it from the first practice on. He did not put a wheel wrong all weekend. He drove his butt off."

So did Andretti's son, Marco, who picked up his career-best finish on the downtown street course after using the offseason to study what he's been doing wrong in the race car and to rebuild his confidence. He used a late surge to pass Simona de Silvestro with two laps to go to get the podium finish.

"I've been working so hard in the offseason, not just physically, but on places where I've been lacking and these places have been a weak point for me," said Andretti, who praised de Silvestro but said in the closing laps, "I had to muscle her a little bit. I needed a podium."

De Silvestro lost two more spots - to Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon - before the checkered flag. She settled for sixth but was thrilled about her debut race for KV Racing Technology, which went fourth and sixth with Kanaan and de Silvestro.

Mario Andretti was among the many people who stopped after the race to congratulate the Swiss driver.

"We were running up front the whole day and it was really cool to be keeping up with them," she said. "I think we can really learn from this and try to be better next week. We all know we can be fast and qualify fast and run up front. Now we just have to minimize mistakes so we can win races."

It was a huge opening weekend for Chevrolet, which swept the top four spots in its first race since capturing the driver and manufacturer championship in last year's return season to IndyCar.

Dixon was the highest-finishing Honda for team owner Chip Ganassi, who minced no words Saturday when he openly questioned Honda's desire to win in IndyCar. The Honda teams had been slow all weekend, and Ganassi's comments sent a clear message he's not satisfied with engine performance.

Honda had only three drivers in the top 10.

"Obviously, it was a disappointing start to our IndyCar season," said Art St. Cyr, president of Honda Performance Development. "But we will learn from this and everyone ... will work, together with our teams, to get back to the top of the podium."

The race was dominated early by Will Power, who led the first 26 laps but lost the lead to Penske Racing teammate Castroneves on a restart and then lost another position to Hinchcliffe on another restart. It put him back in third for a huge chunk of the race until a bizarre incident under caution with JR Hildebrand, who inexplicably drove on top of Power's car.

The contact damaged Power's side mirror and caused a flat tire, forcing him to pit road for repairs that dropped him to 16th, where he finished.

Hildebrand took the blame.

"We were getting ready for the restart, I was dialing my knobs back and talking to team about the start," Hildebrand said. "Guys just slowed up, and I ran into the back of him. It was totally my fault. As soon as I hit him, I couldn't help from going anywhere. It was totally my fault.

"I'm super sorry for Will. We were just trying to get back on lead lap. I was doing too much all at once when the field slowed up there."

But Power was more bothered by the restarts, and said he's spoken to race director Beaux Barfield about protocol in the past.

"What are we going to do about second-place taking off? He just keeps allowing people to do it," Power said. "And then JR just ran over the back of me to ruin the day. He said he was just looking at the steering wheel. Just a mistake, man, it happens."

Castroneves said he did nothing wrong on the restart that got him past Power on the restart on lap 27. Power never led again.

"I went between the cones where we talk about it; but I understand that he also has got to keep the pace," said Castroneves, who led a race-high 42 laps.

"They said this is going to be the start of the race, you've got to be ready. I was ready. So in this situation, everybody wants to win and go for it. I think I was doing my job."

With the onset of the IndyCar season this weekend I wanted to set-up an interview with Canadian and Andretti Autosport driver James Hinchcliffe to preview his upcoming junior year (and for us Canadians his third year) in the sport. 

This was going to be a story about Hinchcliffe’s hopes and expectations for the upcoming season (his second at Andretti Autosport), but the more I spoke with him and the more I looked at the state of IndyCar, I realized that IndyCar’s future success might hinge on this humble yet extremely charismatic personality. 

Let’s first look at the recent history of the sport. IndyCar has tried to claw back to the state it was in before the IRL–CART split in 1995, but the progress has been slow. They’ve made strides since reunification in 2008, but the overall loss of interest in open-wheel motor racing to NASCAR has been devastating especially in the United States. 

For years, IndyCar got plenty of mainstream media attention from starlet Danica Patrick. Showcasing her at any opportunity they could, but their biggest chess piece will soon be two years removed from IndyCar and has started her second year in NASCAR.  IndyCar’s hope of showcasing Target Chip Ganassi’s Dario Franchitti and Team Penske’s Will Power has seemed to fizzle. The Franchitti–Power battles over the years have been entertaining to watch from a racing fans perspective, but it hasn’t catapulted IndyCar to the level it needs to be at.

IndyCar receives most of its publicity from its showpiece race the Indy 500 held at the end of May. Otherwise, the media push is only on when the race is coming to your backyard or when there’s a big change up top which happened once again this off-season with the ousting of CEO Randy Bernard.  Ownership changes and boardroom politics are not the media attention that fans care about and any more instability might just turn loyal fans away. When at the track, fans have a great time watching their local spectacle and seeing their favourite drivers’ compete. The key is getting them to follow IndyCar year round on television. 

The answer – well in my opinion he’s sitting right in front of me in Canada’s own James Hinchcliffe. What IndyCar needs is a major personality that can resonate with many and introduce new followers to IndyCar. An American would probably be preferred by the powers that be to take the mantle and lead the charge, but Canada is close enough and his team is owned by the all-American Michael Andretti anyways. 

Hinchcliffe doesn’t take himself too seriously outside of the race car and is famous for being the self-appointed mayor in his fictitiously created town called “Hinchtown”. Hinchtown was created when he was still working his way up the ladder in the Indy Lights series producing and starring in a number of videos addressing his citizens. Hinchcliffe has furthered his video star this offseason with parody videos called The Offseason co-starring Power, Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing’s Josef Newgarden and Chip Ganassi’s Charlie Kimball. These videos are just some examples that showcase Hinchcliffe’s personality and why he can be the star that IndyCar longs for.

Whether Hinchcliffe knows it or not – a big showing in this year’s IndyCar season will catapult him to stardom. However as the saying goes “you have to crawl before you can walk” and Hinchcliffe understands he has to win his first race before he can even think of the driver’s championship race. 

“I absolutely want to get the win out of the way, but I also want to eliminate mistakes. That’s the goal. I think if our car is competitive enough and if we eliminate all mistakes – we can finish in the top three at the end of the season,” said Hinchcliffe.

Hinchcliffe should no longer be viewed as just a nice Canadian story in the field. It was suitable when he won Rookie of the Year honours with Newman/Haas Racing edging Panther Racing’s J.R. Hildebrand. It was also a nice story last year with seven top-six finishes in his first eight races last year, but the rest of the season was filled with mishaps and bad breaks. Those things happen in your first full season with a new team, but it’s time for Hinchcliffe to shine considering his teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay won the driver’s championship last season.

Hinchcliffe needs to elevate to the next level and the continuity with the same team under the leadership of Michael Andretti should be the ticket. Andretti Autosport is the first team that Hinchcliffe has been with for more than one season and he cherishes the time he has had with Andretti to soak up his knowledge. Andretti Autosport has retained their drivers for another year including the aforementioned Hunter-Reay, Michael’s son Marco Andretti, while adding E.J. Viso into the fold from KV Racing.

“Continuity is huge. If you know the people you’re working with and you’ve had that experience together, you’re in a much better position to make certain decision on the race track,” explains Hinchcliffe. 

Marketing yourself is not what you grow up thinking as a young race car driver coming up the ranks, but it looks like that’s what it has come down to. There are many great ambassadors of the sport including Franchitti and long-term stalwarts KV Racing’s Tony Kanaan and Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves, who have all done their part in promoting IndyCar over the years. Unfortunately, IndyCar is at a point where they need more than talented ambassadors and all three of them are getting a bit long in the tooth. There’s a need for fresh faces to attract an additional fan base with a combination of youth, talent and personality. If you google IndyCar, a section of people related to your search pops up showcasing Danica Patrick and Randy Bernard – wouldn’t that signify a need to promote the current stars of IndyCar?

Ryan Hunter-Reay is a great story filled with determination and perseverance, but why hasn’t Hunter-Reay taken off? He’s the perfect all-American talent that the series thrives for, yet still his thrilling championship win over Will Power in the last race of the year created no buzz outside of the racing world.  

That leaves you with James Hinchcliffe. He’s a master in marketing himself and he’s backed by Go Daddy, the most recognizable sponsor in the sport. He has been featured in television commercials and billboards not just in his native Canada, but throughout the United States. All that’s left is for him to do is win a few races and the path for glory is set in a sport that’s desperate for personalities. 

Hinchcliffe is not the only IndyCar driver that can lead this push. His parody co-stars Power and Newgarden, as well as Hunter-Reay should be the new wave of drivers headlining their marketing efforts. 

In Canada, specialty sports television channel Sportsnet have already tried to capitalize on Hinchcliffe’s personality by showcasing Hinchcliffe in commercials, television shows and in their new magazine. 

With the promotion and hopeful success of James Hinchcliffe, IndyCar can grow the sport in Canada and draw the attention it deserves. IndyCar will never get to the level of attention it received before the split of IRL and CART in the 1990’s, but it can definitely do better than its current state. Now James only has to do his part on track, so no pressure…

Getting to know James Hinchcliffe a bit more

First car? 2005 MINI Cooper S

Last song sung in the car? “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen

The longest road trip you’ve ever taken?  18 hour drive to Denver.

Favourite vacation spot?   Turks and Caicos Islands

Favourite sports team?  Toronto Maple Leafs

Favourite Movie?  Snatch (2000)

Is there any one motto that you live by?  Life is too short.