Overcoming a slick, bumpy track that had everyone nervous,
including his own racing team, Sebastien Bourdais kept his head
together and his car on the track en route to a dominant Champ Car
victory in the inaugural Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose on
Sunday. The defending Champ Car World Series champion, who
increased his overall points lead this season with his third
victory of the year, dominated the race from start to finish. He
started on the pole, and earned bonus points for leading the most
laps and turning the fastest lap of the race.
Overcoming a slick, bumpy track that had everyone nervous, including his own racing team, Sebastien Bourdais kept his head together and his car on the track en route to a dominant Champ Car victory in the inaugural Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose on Sunday.
The defending Champ Car World Series champion, who increased his overall points lead this season with his third victory of the year, dominated the race from start to finish. He started on the pole, and earned bonus points for leading the most laps and turning the fastest lap of the race.
“I only made a few small mistakes but it wasn’t enough to open the door for anyone,” Bourdais said. “Give my team the credit. They worked very hard to get my car ready for me.”
In fact, Bourdais overcame his share of adversity to secure the win over rival Paul Tracy, who took second, and teammate Oriol Servia, who was third.
Bourdais’ Newman/Haas Racing crew was so worried that their top driver had done serious damage to his car by crossing the light rail tracks during Saturday’s qualifying that they worked well into the wee hours Sunday morning taking apart and reassembling the entire car Saturday night. Then, Bourdais busted his suspension during Sunday’s warm-ups.
But once the race began, Bourdais had no peer on the short, narrow 1.448-mile course that wound its way through downtown San Jose.
Tracy, who started third behind Servia but took over the second slot after the first yellow flag pit stop, simply couldn’t catch Bordais. He appeared to get his lone chance at passing for the lead late in the race when Bourdais slid at the hairpin turn, but said after the race that the minor error by the points leader wasn’t enough to offer a real opportunity.
“Sebastien made one small braking error but there was really no way to get by him,” Tracy said. “We were sitting second and decided not to take a chance, and we just followed him in.”
Meanwhile, the rest of the field had more than its share of problems with the brand new course, charitably described as “bumpy” by the drivers. Turn 4, the lone big left turn on the track, claimed more than its share of drivers, including Bay Area favorite AJ Allmendinger.
The Los Gatos native and Leigh High graduate who used to live in Hollister was running fourth just 15 minutes into the race when he made hard contact with the wall in Turn 4 and had to retire. Despite th disappointment, the 23-year-old still sits fifth in the overall points.
Morgan Hill product Jimmy Vasser also had to pit, with a broken suspension, just a few minutes later, but returned to the track during a caution 11 laps down. But a second broken suspension ended his day after just 60 laps, and the 39-year-old ended up 11th.
By the end of the race, only nine of the 18 cars who started the race were still running, and only eight finished on the lead lap.
An announced crowd of 62,371 watched Sunday’s race, and more than 153,000 fans attended the three-day event.
