Two-time Champ Car World Series title-holder Sebastien Bourdais and his father Patrick drove through the pack to grab a seventh place finish out of 88 cars in the opening race of the 2006 Grand Am Cup Championship at Daytona International Speedway.
The father-and-son duo drove a Multimatic entered Ford Racing Technologies Mustang FR500C - a reward for Sebastien for taking his second consecutive Champ Car title last year.
With the senior member of the Bourdais family starting from 27th on the grid - the eight-time 24 Hours of Le Mans driver charged through the field up to 10th spot before handing over to his son, Sebastien.
After topping the timesheets in Thursday's second practice session, Sebastien again proved to be right on the pace - setting the second fastest lap time of any Mustang FR500C runner in the field.
Sebastien's stint was not without incident. A stop-go penalty for missing the "bus stop" on the back straight and a wild spin caused by contact from the Porsche of Patrick Long kept the Champ Car star fighting his way back through the pack. The #1 Mustang was back up to seventh place at the checkered flag.
Five Multimatic-built Ford Racing Technologies Mustang FR500C racecars finished in the top ten including three in the top five.
"Patrick did a fantastic job at the start to work his way up to 10th, I really didn't expect that," said Multimatic Vice President and Technical Director, Larry Holt.
"With contact with the Porsche and the stop-go penalty we probably missed the chance to grab a top five finish but Sebastien and Patrick had a great time out there today.
"Sebastien is a little upset because he is so competitive, but the fact he set the second fastest Mustang FR500C time of the race proved he is a fantastic talent.
"Both the guys said the car was perfect. I think we will see a lot more Mustang success in 2006."
Multimatic Motorsports clinched a Grand Am Cup "grand-slam" in 2005 - clinching the drivers', teams' and manufactuers' championships.
DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY - RESULTS# CAR CL DRIVERS CAR LAPS 1 44 GS Lux/Espenlaub Porsche 996 57 laps 2 96 GS Gleason/Auberlen BMW M3 57 laps 3 15 GS Finlay/McDowell Ford Mustang 57 laps 4 37 GS Seafuse/Gue Ford Mustang 57 laps 5 5 GS Nastasi/James Ford Mustang 57 laps 6 2 GS Barber/Borcheller Ford Mustang 57 laps 7 1 GS S. Bourdais/P. Bourdais Ford Mustang 57 laps 8 97 GS Hainer/Said BMW M3 57 laps 9 88 GS Weldon/Ellis Porsche 996 57 laps 10 03 GS Bernheim/Derment Porsche 996 57 laps
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS
“At the end I wound up losing quite a bit of time. All in all it was a fun race. Without the race penalty we would have finished in the top five.
"My dad had a blast, I’m just happy that we made it to the end. We had a pretty good result. It was a fun experience, mission accomplished.”
“The car is very fast here because it has very good top speed. It’s a little tricky in the infield and it’s a bit of a fight. This car tends to use up the tires a little more than the Porches.
"At the end of the day it’s pretty close but it’s a tough to fight with cars that don’t have the same characteristics. So you gain sometimes and you lose sometimes. You try to pass the guy and then you don’t succeed and he passes you back. There was a lot of fights and a lot of passing.
"We would like to again thank Ford for the opportunity.”
