ChampCar rookie Robert Doornbos(affectionately referred to by NA motorsports fans as "Bobby D".......
) has been knocking on victory's door all year long; today at the scenic Mt. Tremblant circuit, he broke through giving Minardi Team USA its' first win since 2004(when Ryan Hunter-Reay won at the Milwaukee Mile for then-Herdez Competition) in ChampCar's return to the Laurentians'. The race itself was interesting from start to finish............
Prior to the start, electrical problems prevented polesitter Tristan Gommendy from taking the formation lap; the team fixed the problem, but Gommendy was forced to start from pitlane. When the lights went out for the standing start, both Team Australia cars of Will Power and Simon Pagenaud along with Conquest's Jan Heylen stall, bringing out the first caution of the day; all three cars got tow starts and got back to speed soon afterwards. At the same time, NHL's Sebastien Bourdais jumped the start(how he incurred no penalty is beyond me........
) but then the proverbial gremlins began to come out of the woodwork........
First, the rain..........one of the biggest worries any driver/team can have is seeing rain in one part of the track and dry conditions elsewhere, which is what occurred all race long; having begun on slicks, teams had to make stops throughout the race to put on wets, and by the end everyone on track was on wets'. Of course, it was easier running behind the leader than
being the leader, because whenever anyone ran at the front, they would either make a mistake on-track, handing the lead to whoever's behind or, in Graham Rahal's case, stalling while on pitroad. In addition, last week's winner, Paul Tracy, saw his race end early when the Cosworth XFE-3 turbo decided to BBQ itself(the second consecutive race in which the venerable Cossie BBQ'ed itself........
)
In the end, the only driver who
didn't screw up all race long was Doornbos, who cruised to a near-3 second win over SeaBass(who got booed afterwards by spectators for b------- on-air about Doornbos supposedly blocking.......hey, SeaBass, WHAT BLOCKING?
)......here are the top-10 from an interesting return to Mt. Tremblant:
1st}(R)#14 Robert Doornbos.................................62 laps
2nd} #1 Sebastien Bourdais..................................-2.888 sec
3rd} #5 Will Power...............................................-7.310 sec
4th}(R)#15 Simon Pagenaud................................-10.562 sec
5th} #9 Justin Wilson...........................................-11.288 sec
6th}(R)#21 Neel Jani...........................................-12.346 sec
7th}(R)#2 Graham Rahal.....................................-12.790 sec
8th} #8 Alex Tagliani...........................................-13.422 sec
9th} #7 Oriol Servia............................................-26.742 sec
10th}(R)#28 Ryan Dalziel....................................-32.949 sec
