Sebastien Bourdais performed to perfection in winning the 31st annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach last night in his Newman Haas Lola. It was his 11th series victory and 18th podium in only 33 career Champ Car starts.
The Frenchman, who claimed the 2005 Vanderbilt Cup used superior Lola setups and excellent pit strategy to lead 37 of 81 laps around the 1.968-mile Long Beach streets and beat polesitter Paul Tracy’s Forsythe-Lola by 4.138 seconds. Bourdais denied Tracy a third consecutive win on the Californian streets and completed a perfect start to his championship defence after outbraking the veteren in to the first corner after a re-start. His team mate, Bruno Junqueira who started in second place, completed the podium in the second of the Newman Haas Lola’s, followed by Justin Wilson who equaled his best ever Champ finish in 4th with the Ru SPORT Lola. Mario Dominguez, making his first start to team mate to Paul Tracy gave a very good account of himself in 5th.
“We didn’t change the car that much all weekend and not at all after the morning warmup,” Bourdais revealed. “We just did our best to extract the best out of our Lola and our Bridgestone tyres.” Runner-up Tracy, took his 63rd podium in his 14 year Champ career and admitted that that Bourdais was just too quick on raceday. “I tried to keep pace with Sebastien but we were not where we wanted to be, all in all," he said.
In securing his seventh straight podium Junqueira worked to “save fuel all day. Fine-tuning our Lola makes a big difference for both of us; each day one of us was ‘right there’ and today was Sebastien’s day. He took advantage of the small differences, said the Brazilian.”
Justin Wilson was highly delighted with a spirited run to 4th and was looking forward to more battles at the front of the field during the season. “I’m very proud of the RuSPORT team. The whole crew did a great job all weekend and today, Todd (Malloy, Race Engineer) did a great job calling the race and the crew gave me great pit stops, Said the lanky Yorkshireman. “We were just a fraction of a second from 2nd-place out of my last stop. We fell back and battled for 3rd, then Bruno (Junqueira) went sliding wide, and I almost had him. Today is a good start, but next time, we plan on getting those Newman-Haas guys!”
Timo Glock earned top rookie honours at Long Beach with a fine sixth in the Rocketsports Lola. “At the end the car was really good and I was able to overtake some guys and I was having a good time at the end,” said the sometime Jordan F1 racer. Another rookie, Ronnie Bremer was 7th in his first drive in the HVM Lola. The Dane led briefly during the pit stops and was delighted with the way his debut went. Fellow Scandanavian, Bjorn Wirdheim came in 12th just ahead of Dale Coyne racing’s Oriol Servia.
A.J. Allmendinger running in the Ru SPORT Lola, Jimmy Vasser in the PKV Lola and returning former champion, Cristiano da Matta’s similar Lola rounded out the top 10.
With all 19 starters running the preferred Lola chassis, a new era in Champ Car racing began today that sees team and driver skills come to the fore. This race marked the first time since 2002 at the 2-mile California Speedway oval that there have been lead changes in a Champ Car contest amongst seven drivers. Only two of 19 starters retired and 13 cars finished on the lead lap.
The next race in the 14-event Champ Car World Series campaign takes place on May 22 at Fundidora Park in Monterrey, Mexico.
RACE RESULT
Pos Car Driver Nat Team Chassis Laps Gap Status 1. 1 Sebastien Bourdais F Newman/Haas Racing Lola 81 2. 3 Paul Tracy CDN Forsythe Racing Lola 81 4.137 Active 3. 2 Bruno Junqueira BR Newman/Haas Racing Lola 81 5.446 Active 4. 9 Justin Wilson GB RuSPORT Lola 81 6.270 Active 5. 7 Mario Dominguez MEX Forsythe Racing Lola 81 7.917 Active 6. 8 Timo Glock GER Rocketsports Racing Lola 81 8.501 Active 7. 55 Ronnie Bremer DK HVM Lola 81 8.999 Active 8. 10 A.J. Allmendinger USA RuSPORT Lola 81 10.945 Active 9. 12 Jimmy Vasser USA PKV Racing Lola 81 14.806 Active 10. 21 Cristiano da Matta BR PKV Racing Lola 81 16.074 Active 11. 19 Oriol Servia E Dale Coyne Racing Lola 81 18.719 Active 12. 4 Bjorn Wirdheim S HVM Lola 81 19.651 Active 13. 31 Ryan Hunter-Reay USA Rockertsports Racing Lola 81 20.034 Active 14. 5 Marcus Marshall AUS Team Australia Racing Lola 80 1 lap Active 15. 15 Alex Tagliani CDN Team Australia Racing Lola 79 13.265 Active 16. 41 Fabrizio Del Monte IT Jensen Motorsport Lola 74 7 laps Active 17. 27 Andrew Ranger CDN Conquest Racing Lola 70 3.866 Accident 18. 34 Nelson Philippe F Conquest Racing Lola 61 20 laps Active 19. 11 Alex Sperafico BR Dale Coyne Racing Lola 41 1 lap Gerabox
