Overcoming a slick, bumpy track that had everyone on edge,
including his own racing team, Sebastien Bourdais kept his head
together and his car on the course en route to a dominant Champ Car
Series victory in the inaugural Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San
Jose on Sunday.
San Jose – Overcoming a slick, bumpy track that had everyone on edge, including his own racing team, Sebastien Bourdais kept his head together and his car on the course en route to a dominant Champ Car Series victory in the inaugural Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose on Sunday.
The defending Champ Car Series champion, who increased his overall points lead this season with his third victory of the year, dominated the race from start to finish. He started on the pole, and earned bonus points for leading the most laps and turning the fastest lap of the race.
“I only made a few small mistakes but it wasn’t enough to open the door for anyone,” Bourdais said. “Give my team the credit. They worked very hard to get my car ready for me.”
Bourdais overcame his share of adversity on a short, narrow course which launched race cars over light rail tracks at two crossings to secure the win over rival Paul Tracy, who took second, and teammate Oriol Servia, who was third.
Bourdais’ Newman/Haas Racing crew was so worried that their top driver had done serious damage to his car by crossing the light rail tracks during Saturday’s qualifying that they worked well into the wee hours Sunday morning taking apart and reassembling the entire car. Then, the 26-year-old Frenchman busted his suspension during Sunday’s warm-ups.
But once the race began, Bourdais had no peer on the tight, 1.448-mile course that wound its way through downtown San Jose.
Tracy, who started third in the grid behind Servia but took over the second slot after the first yellow flag pit stop, simply couldn’t catch Bourdais. He appeared to get his lone chance at passing for the lead late in the race when Bourdais slid at the hairpin turn, opening up a split-second window to pass on the inside. Tracy said after the race that the minor error by the points leader wasn’t enough to offer a real opportunity.
“Sebastien made one small braking error but there was really no way to get by him,” Tracy said. “We were sitting second and decided not to take a chance, and we just followed him in.”
The 2003 series champion, trailing Bourdais in the season standings, came up 3.724-seconds – nearly the entire pit straightaway – short as Bourdais seemed to speed up late in the 93-lap event.
Meanwhile, the rest of the field had more than its share of problems with the brand new course, charitably described as “bumpy” by the drivers. Turn four, the lone big left turn on the track, claimed more than its share of drivers, including Bay Area favorite A.J. Allmendinger. The Los Gatos native and Leigh High graduate who used to live in Hollister was running fourth just 15 minutes into the race when he made hard contact with the wall in Turn 4 and had to retire. Despite the disappointing end to his day, the 23-year-old still sits fifth in the overall points standings.
Morgan Hill product Jimmy Vasser also had to pit, with a broken suspension, just a few minutes after Allmendinger crashed out. Vasser managed to return to the track 11 laps down during a caution, but a second broken suspension ended his day after just 60 laps, and the 39-year-old ended up 11th.
By the end of the race, only nine of the 18 cars which started the race were still running, and only eight finished on the lead lap.
Justin Wilson was fourth, followed by Mario Dominguez and rookies Timo Glock, Ronnie Bremer and Bjorn Wirdheim, the only other drivers on the lead lap.
Alex Tagliani, who lost three laps after bouncing off a wall late in the race, was the only other driver running at the end.
Bourdais was in control throughout, although he didn’t lead all the way.
Bremer, who made a pit stop on the third lap after a collision with Riccardo Sperafico, stayed on track when the leaders pitted on lap 28 and led until he made his second stop on lap 48.
Bourdais went out front again at that point, but fell back to second when he pitted again on lap 61 and Wirdheim stayed out and grabbed the lead. After Wirdheim made his final stop on lap 72, Bourdais was out front for good.
An announced crowd of 62,371 watched Sunday’s race, and more than 153,000 fans attended the three-day event.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
