Sebastien Bourdais (#2 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) won yesterday's Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver - surviving a first-turn spin that left him deep in the field to come back and claim his fifth victory of the year. The victory is the eighth in the young career of Bourdais and allowed him to widen his series lead to 56 points over teammate Bruno Junqueira (#6 PacifiCare Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone).
Ironically, it was the two Newman/Haas Racing teammates that were embroiled in the first-turn melee, as Bourdais and Junqueira went into the tight first turn side-by-side at the drop of the green flag. Junqueira used a good start to pull alongside the polesitting Bourdais at the start but the two cars could not hold position through the turn, resulting in light contact that sent Bourdais into a spin.
Junqueira stayed on course and took the lead with Paul Tracy (#1 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) slipping into the second spot. Bourdais would plummet to 13th after getting his car pointed in the right direction, and immediately set sail for the front. He was up to eighth after just 10 laps and had climbed to fifth by the time the first set of pit stops rolled around. The first of pit stops saw the second lead change of the day as Tracy was able to save enough fuel to allow his Forsythe Championship Racing team to get him out in front of Junqueira on lap 40.
Tracy would hold the lead for the next 40 laps and appeared to have things well in hand as he chased the win. Mario Dominguez (#55 Herdez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) was four seconds behind Tracy after making an inside pass on Junqueira in Turn Five, a move brought about as Junqueira was suffering brake problems with his car. Bourdais had beaten Oriol Servia (#11 YokeTV.com Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) out of the pits on his stop to claim fourth, then outgunned Junqueira in Turn 1 on Lap 55 to snare the third spot but was still 11 seconds behind the leaders with 25 laps to go.
Salvation came in the form of a Ryan Hunter-Reay (#4 Herdez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) spin on Lap 73 as, although Race Control tried to avoid breaking out a full-course caution, the yellow banner waved to bunch up the field while Hunter-Reay's stricken car was towed out of Turn Nine.
Tracy and Dominguez lined up ahead of Bourdais on the Lap 79 restart, but that order didn't last long. Bourdais went inside of Dominguez into Turn One and this time survived a brief bit of wheel banging to take the second spot. Two laps later Bourdais took advantage of a rare Tracy braking miscue to close the gap, then made the pass in Turn Nine to claim a lead that he would never relinquish. Once in front, Bourdais turned up the wick despite having minor suspension problems as a result of his contact with Dominguez. The Frenchman turned the race's fastest lap on the day's penultimate trip around the 1.657-mile street course, and beat the field to the line by 7.446 seconds.
Tracy settled for second with Junqueira rounding out the podium in third. Dominguez would bring his Herdez car home in the fourth spot, giving him back-to-back top-five runs for the first time since the Monterrey race. Rookie points leader A.J. Allmendinger (#10 Western Union Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) scored his third top-five finish of the season as he brought his RuSPORT machine to the line in the fifth spot. The finish allowed Allmendinger to widen his rookie points lead to 13 markers after nine events. His closest pursuer, Justin Wilson (#34 Mi-Jack Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), finished in seventh place for the second consecutive event, marking his fifth top-10 finish of the 2004 season.
Servia showed why he was one of the more sought-after free agents in the 2004 Champ Car preseason as he used his skills to score a sixth-place finish for the Dale Coyne Racing machine. Servia ran in the top five for much of the day and then kept his mount on track despite battling a stuck air jack that caused his car to smoke under braking for the last 20 laps. The finish is the second consecutive top-six finish for Servia and vaulted him into the top 10 for the first time all season.
Mario Haberfeld (#5 Cummins Ford-Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone) made up spots from his starting position for the eighth time in the season's nine races, earning an eighth-place finish while Patrick Carpentier (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) settled for ninth on a day where he started fourth but battled handling problems throughout the first part of the race. Road America winner Alex Tagliani (#8 Johnson Controls Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) rounded out the top 10.
The series takes a week off before heading to the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on the Ile. Notre-Dame for the Molson Indy Montreal August 27-29. The time won't be all restful however, as most of the teams on the circuit will journey to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Wednesday's day-long test on the 1.5-mile superspeedway oval.
QUOTES FROM THE TOP THREE FINISHERS
SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS (#2 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "It is a beautiful win today. To start on the pole, then it was difficult to work your way back to the top, and win, it is a great feeling. I had to pass guys on the track and earn my way back to the top, and we were able to do that in the McDonald's car. When I was running in 4th, I realized I could possibly win this, but it was not going to be very easy. This is the best street race in a long time and it is a terrific weekend. I am very, very happy."
BRUNO JUNQUEIRA (#6 PacifiCare Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "It was an ok race. I did not have good balance with the PacifiCare car. I ran into traffic before the first pit stop and Paul (Tracy) was able to close in on me heading in to the first stop. Tracy had a good pit stop. After that, the car wasn't as good; I had lots of traffic, and brake problems. I couldn't attack the corners and I was just trying to keep the car on track. This is an ok result; we didn't have the car to win today."
PAUL TRACY (#1 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "It went better I expected. The car was not handling well. I thought that we had the race until the yellow came out. The car was ok, but it was not that fast. It was adequate enough to keep a consistent pace. The Indeck team did a great job on the first stop allowing me to get out ahead of Bruno (Junqueira). There was not much I could do when Sebastien (Bourdais) came up behind me. I gave way to him, he had a better car then I did. I just wanted to be sure to have a good finish. This was definitely one of the best street course races we have had in a long time and it was definitely a good show."
