Serving as a replacement driver for injured Bruno Junqueira in the Newman Haas team, Oriol Servia secured his maiden Champ Car victory (in his 95th start) this weekend on the 2.709-mile Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. The Catalonian led only one lap of the contest, hunting down and passing eventual second place finisher Timo Glock on the final lap to bring his Newman Haas Lola to Victory Lane.
“Since day one, the [Newman-Haas Racing] team has shown great, great support for me, all the guys in the crew and all the owners. It just feels extremely good to be able to show them that they did the right choice trusting me and I’m really, really glad to give them this win. I hope it’s the first of many,” said Servia . In winning he became the sixth different winner this season and moved to second in the chase for Champ Car’s Vanderbilt Cup, behind teammate Sebastien Bourdais.
Rookie Glock had to give way to the charging Servia after the race director adjudged that Glock had previously short cutted a chicane and accepted the runner-up slot, completing the 79-lap distance one second behind the winner and leading 19 laps in his Rocketsports run Lola. “It was a really tough race for me,” Glock explained, “especially because I had to start 11th on the grid. In one way it’s disappointing (to finish second) and on the other way it’s a great weekend for us, to be on the podium after all the races without luck.” Glock continues to lead the Rookie of the Year standings.
Justin Wilson took third place in his Rocketsports Lola. Overcoming problems during the heated contest that was interrupted only twice – once for Ricardo Sperafico’s single car incident and a second time for debris – the lanky Briton credited his RuSPORT crew, saying: “Our pit stops were fantastic, including our last stop when we came out in second place. At the end of the day we did everything we could do and got the best result we were able to get.”
Reigning champion Sebastien Bourdais had difficulty on his final pit stop that relegated his Newman Haas Lola to fourth place at the close after leading 59 laps. The Frenchman’s race was perfect until the yellow flag and the bad pit stop lost the Frenchman valuable time. “The team is trying really hard, sometimes a bit too hard and then small mistakes happen,” said the reigning champion Bourdais retains a healthy point lead of 276-215 over his teammate Servia while Paul Tracy (Forsythe Lola) has 211 points.
The Champ cars’ next race takes place on September 24th at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway 1.5-mile oval.
