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Big Weekend of Champ Car And Australian V8 Supercar |
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Friday, 20 April 2007 |
Just as it will be during the Lexmark Indy 300 on October 18-21, the Champ Car World Series and Australian V8 Supercars will be out in force this weekend in their respective Championships.
Unlike the iconic Australian sporting and entertainment spectacle that is contested on Queensland's Gold Coast each year, both series will be run on foreign shores this weekend.
Champ Car drivers are competing for glory in the Grand Prix of Houston,
while the home-grown and hugely popular V8 Supercars travel the Tasman
for their final fling in Pukekohe, New Zealand.
While the young guns of the Champ Car World Series might have staked
their claim on the 2007 Championship in the season-opener in Las Vegas
a fortnight ago, many of the veterans stepped up last week in Long
Beach which sets up some interesting match-ups.
One of the old brigade was Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald’s
Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) who was back to his old self in Long Beach,
after one of the worst race weekends of his career in Las Vegas.
Bourdais grabbed pole position on Saturday and went on to win a third
consecutive Long Beach Grand Prix, jolting him to third in the
standings, 19 points behind first place.
This weekend Bourdais will be looking for the 25th win of his career on
a track where he won the inaugural event at Reliant Park last season
after starting fifth.
The Frenchman may have taken his first step in his quest to securing a
record-breaking fourth consecutive Champ Car Championship last weekend,
but the driver sitting atop the standings and who promises to give
Bourdais a run for his money is Australia’s own Will Power (#5 Aussie
Vineyards Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone).
Queensland born and bred, Power is on a roll this season after
clinching a front row starting spot by winning the provisional pole on
Friday at Long Beach in his Team Australia #5 entry.
The 26-year-old made a daring move to get by Alex Tagliani (#8 LXN2
Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) on the final lap of the race to score
another podium finish after becoming the first Australian to ever win a
Champ Car event two weeks ago. Power heads to Houston with a 15 point
margin over second in the standings.
Sitting quietly in the runner-up position on the points table is
Power’s former team mate, Canadian Alex Tagliani who, thanks to his two
top-five finishes in the first two races of the season, is four points
up on Bourdais and 15 down to Power.
Another veteran who made his mark in Long Beach was Oriol Servia (#3
Indeck Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone) who finished second with only one
qualifying session and a 30-minute warmup under his belt.
Servia was asked to fill in for the injured Paul Tracy after the
Canadian was hurt in a crash in the Saturday morning practice. The
Catalonian is slated to be behind the wheel of the Forsythe car and
will try to continue moving up the points standings after jumping in to
ninth place after just one race.
In the V8 Supercar Championship race, it’s been Holden dominating Ford
during the opening two rounds with reigning titleholder Rick Kelly
asserting some early authority and commanding top position.
Kelly’s HSV Dealer team mate Garth Tander claimed his first ever home
town victory in Perth in round two to nestle himself close behind in
second, while Holden Racing Team’s Todd Kelly has also showed
consistency to nail down third spot in the overall standings.
Tander was in crushing form on the 2.4 kilometre Barbagallo circuit, sweeping all three race victories from pole position.
He was joined on the podium by Rick Kelly and Mark Skaife from the Holden Racing Team.
Tander’s maiden victory was completed at the circuit where he cut his teeth in Formula Ford.
The result elevated him to second in the series standings, 13 points shy of Kelly, the defending champion.
Skaife’s podium result – which included a close second in the final
race – was a welcome return to racing after having to pay attention to
off-track politics instead of on-track performance during the early
stages of the season.
Though Holden’s VE Commodore took a clean sweep of the podium, Ford
fans will be buoyed by the result of Dick Johnson’s Jim Beam Racing.
That team’s drivers – Steven Johnson and Will Davison – were strong all
weekend, narrowly missing the podium to come fourth and fifth
respectively.
It was the team’s best result since the duo finished fourth in last year’s Sandown 500 endurance race.
Craig Lowndes was in the leading Vodafone Falcon, however a broken front anti-roll bar hampered his progress in race two.
He was able to finish the round sixth overall, but teammate Jamie Whincup wasn’t so lucky.
Whincup’s car suffered electrical problems in race two that meant his
pit lane speed limiter didn’t work in his compulsory pit stop, amid a
range of other associated problems.
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