Fighting the urge to look in the rear-view mirror all day as carnage swirled around him, Sebastien Bourdais (#2 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) kept his car in front of a chaotic field all day at the Molson Indy Toronto to score his fourth win of the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford season.
Bourdais led 75 of the day's 84 laps and fought off numerous restart challenges, including one with two laps to go, to take the victory in front of a race-day crowd of 72,561. Bourdais took the lead from pole and was able to keep his Newman/Haas Racing machine at the top of the charts on a day that featured seven caution flags and five penalties, as well as numerous bruised egos and a pile of broken race-car parts.
The win, coupled with first-lap trouble for Bruno Junqueira (#6 PacifiCare Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), gives Bourdais the series points lead for the second time in his career as the Frenchman leaves Toronto with a 28-point bulge in the standings.
The end of the day was as action-filled as the start as a late caution flag for the stalled car of Rodolfo Lavin (#3 Corona Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) caused a restart with two laps to go. Bourdais took the flag with Jimmy Vasser (#12 Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) breathing down his neck, but was able to pull away to earn a margin of victory of 1.396 seconds.
Behind Bourdais and Vasser came the last of a series of fireworks as Patrick Carpentier (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Ryan Hunter-Reay (#4 Herdfez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) battled fiercely for the final spot on the podium. Hunter-Reay, who was involved in an early skirmish that yielded the day's first penalty from Champ Car stewards, had fought back from deep in the field to hold the third spot, but Carpentier found a way past the Herdez sophomore in Turn Three to join Bourdais and Vasser on the podium.
The action came early and often on yet another perfect weather day for the Champ Cars. Junqueira and Mario Dominguez (#55 Herdez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) tried to go two-wide into the first turn and both ended up in the tires after running out of real estate. Both cars were unable to continue, leaving Junqueira to finish 18th and tumble from the perch atop the series standings that he had held through the past three races.
Bourdais and Paul Tracy (#1 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) stayed within a second of each other throughout the first 20 laps after the restart while Justin Wilson (#34 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Carpentier chased the frontrunning duo. The front four cars were covered by less than four seconds when the second caution of the day came out as Memo Gidley (#17 Lease Plan Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) nosed his new mount into the Turn Three tires. The field stayed on track through the caution and rolled to the first set of green-flag pit stops on Lap 34. Wilson moved in front of Tracy during the first round of pit stops but both of them came out behind Bourdais as well as Michel Jourdain Jr. (#9 Gigante Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), who had taken on a alternate pit strategy to moved him to the second spot.
The pit stop pass would turn out to be a key as Tracy and Wilson would get together six laps later as Tracy tried to slip past the rookie. Wilson's machine stepped out slightly coming through Turn Three, and was hit by the car of Tracy, spinning Wilson in front of Oriol Servia (#11 yokeTV.com Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Alex Tagliani (#8 Johnson Controls Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone). Servia would get the worst of the exchange as he was spun, while Tracy and Tagliani would each earn penalties for their part in the incident.
Tracy clawed back to fifth just six laps later however, after Wilson and Servia brought out another caution flag for contact, while Bourdais was setting a string of fast laps to build an eight-second advantage over Vasser. The American put himself in contention for a podium with a pair of strong passes, then slipped into second by deftly avoiding the Tracy/Wilson/Tagliani/Servia spin on Lap 42.
Bourdais was the first of the leaders to make his final pit stop, allowing Vasser, then Tracy to take the lead of the race. Bourdais would reassume the lead upon completion of the pit-stop cycle however, and was beginning to salt the race away when Tracy and Jourdain had an altercation that brought out the canary banner again. Bourdais held serve on the restart, and then did so again on the restart for the aforementioned Lavin stall, to claim the win.
Behind the podium finishers, Mario Haberfeld (#5 Cummins Ford-Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone) matched a career-best with a fourth place run in the Walker Racing machine, while Tracy held on for the fifth spot. Gaston Mazzacane (#19 American Medical Response Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) scored a career-best run for himself by coming home sixth, followed by Tagliani, Hunter-Reay, Servia and the first top-10 in the Champ Car career of Alex Sperafico (#14 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone).
The Champ Cars will next do battle in the Molson Indy Vancouver, July 23-25 on the temporary street course at Concord Pacific Place.
Quotes From The Top Three Finishers
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: "I think the McDonald's crew did an awesome job. We had a great car today. The team did a great job at figuring out what was the right figure because we stopped one lap later than Paul, and we still have been able to hold him up. You know, I just push really hard and try to pit early on the second stop to make sure that we were not going to get stopped by a yellow. I put a very good lap, 60.3, just pulled away, and after that was a pretty easy race except we had a lot of restarts. I think we did a really good job today."
JIMMY VASSER: "We were focused on keeping our nose clean. I was snipping to the outside to gain positions. We were able to make it through Turn 1 with no problems, and I was able to pass several cars. It was a great finish and we got good points. It was the first podium for the team and Gulfstream, so that is great. I am really happy with the energy in the team. I have been working with them and it (the team) is really starting to come around. It is a great effort, we just need to work on the technical side of the team to really improve our car and get me faster out there on the track."
PATRICK CARPENTIER: "It's fantastic to do well in Toronto - I've never been lucky here, and this is my best result ever; I so happy. My car was very fast, but I had a problem with too much brakes at the rear early on ... after we sorted that out, I was able to run well, and managed to keep out of trouble on the track - although I stalled it twice in the pits and I'm pretty lucky to be here! I kept half of my 'push to pass' until the end and that worked well too - overall a great result for me; I'm a better racer than qualifier and that showed today. Thank you Toronto!"
Noteworthy
Sebastien Bourdais can tie a Champ Car Modern Era (1979-Present) with a win in Vancouver. A win there would tie Bourdais with Al Unser Jr., Alex Zanardi and Paul Tracy as the only Champ Car drivers in the Modern Era to win four consecutive races.
Today's attendance in Toronto was 72,561, for a three-day event total attendance of 164,218.
A.J .Allmendinger finished one spot ahead of Justin Wilson on the day, tying the pair for the top spot in the series Rookie-of-the-Year standings after six races.
With Bourdais' win, France takes the lead in the Nation's Cup battle, leading Canada by five points and Brazil by 12. France has never won a Nation's Cup while Canada is the defending Cup winner.
The win for Sebastien Bourdais was the seventh of his young Champ Car career, tying him with such all-time greats as Dan Gurney, Eddie Rickenbacker and Gil de Ferran.
