Grand Prix of Edmonton--Round 7

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Round 7, the West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton began with a blast as over 55,000+ fans filed into the stands for the Friday practice and qualifying sessions. In an unexpected surprise, both of RuSport's drivers, A.J. Allmendinger and Justin Wilson, set P1 and P2 for the two sessions, w/a time of 59.458 secs. for Allmendinger and a time of 59.986 secs. for Wilson, who won his first ever CCWS event in Toronto last week. Right behind them were the series' "odd couple", reigning titleist Sebastien Bourdais(1:00.474 sesc.) and the 2003 titleist, Paul Tracy(1:00.525 secs.).

After a short break, the Friday qual. session(QS-1) began w/both RuSport drivers laying down the gauntlet w/fast laps in the first ten minutes of the 30+ minute session. Wilson fired the first salvo, setting a fast lap 1/2-sec. faster than the times of Bourdais, Cristiano da Matta and Oriol Servia. After a few more minutes most of the racers went back out for a second qual. stint; however, both Bourdais(#1 McDonald's Ford-Cos/Lola) and rookie Timo Glock(#8 DHL Global FC/L) took advantage of the clear track to mount challenges to the frontrunners. However, during his last stint out, Bourdais glanced the wall through turn 7, damaging the left-front susp. and forcing him to pit or else risk a red-flag penalty(and the loss of his fast QS-1 lap)--Bourdais provisionally sits P10 at the moment.

It was then the cars of Wilson and Tracy who had clear track next, w/Wilson grabbing prov. pole before having to sit out the remaining 10 mins. of the seesion having used up his 15 available laps. Tracy then made a run up the timing charts, grabbing P3 w/a time of 59.497 secs.(119.381 mph) on his 15th and final lap. Wilson, meanwhile, grabbed a seat on the pit wall and watched Allmendinger knock him off of P1 w/a time of 58.628 secs.(121.150 mph), while Wilson will sit provisionally P2 w/a time of 58.954 secs.(120.480 mph). Catalonia Oriol Servia(#2 PacifiCare FC/L) sits currently P4 while da Matta(#21 Bell Micro/PKV FC/L) is in 5th.

Qual. session 2 is set for Saturday, July 16th at 2:25 PM EDT, w/the race set for 3:30 PM EDT Sunday, July 17th.

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Here are some commentaries from the Friday sessions at Edmonton...

1--The pit exit area could use some tweaking. That was illustrated when series rookie Andrew Ranger(#27 MiJack/Tide Ford-Cos./Lola) and Mario Dominguez(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L) collided in turn one as Dominguez was leaving the pitlane. The resulting crashes sent Ranger to the infield care center for precautionary exams on his left hand--the results were negative and Ranger was cleared to race. His team's owner, Eric Bachelart, was not so amused, saying Dominguez came out of pitlane w/out "due" caution. Forsythe Racing officials, in turn, blamed the incident on the turn 1 corner workers, noting that they weren't paying attention to track conditions. This should be interesting to watch.

2--SeaBass in unusual condition for QS-1. Sebastien Bourdais was on the fasttrack to securing a top-5 prov. spot when he crashed through turn 7, damaging the left-front suspension and nearly drawing a red flag. Provisionally, he'll start 10th, but that shouldn't last by the end of QS-2.

3--Course adjustments needed...? While fans and racers were generally pleased with the Finning Intl. Raceway(the name for the temporary circuit), the best praise came from CCWS Course Director Chris Kneifel, who said that the circuit really showed off the cars' capabilites, especially in the turn 2-7 complex and in the turn 1 sect. where two of the larger grandstands are located. He did note, however, that some minor "tweaks" were in order, essentially saying that a few of the tirewalls would be moved and additional safety barriers placed around the sign bridge supports along the circuit. All-in-all, he and the rest of the ChampCar officials were pleased with the track.

Driver quotes from the top three provisional starters:

1--A.J. Allmendinger(#10 Western Union FC/L):"The team did a great a great job to get the car back together. I mean, luckily it was (just) a flat tire. But I thought for how hard I hit, there was going to be more damage. (They) got the car back together. You know, (Justin) keeps making it hard on me. I did a couple of laps that were a few 10th's off of him, and I didn't know if there was much left. Just kind of closed my eyes and hung on for a lap, and luckily got the pole."

2--Justin Wilson(#9 CDW Canada FC/L):"Obviously, I think RuSport came here with a good setup and we've just been able to workon that and get quicker as the day progressed. We're both (excited) about the prspects of having a good race here. It's just getting used to the track and understanding what this circuit requires. So far we're very pleased, and hopefully we can be up there tomorrow."

3--Paul Tracy(#3 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L):"Well, it's fast. It's all momentum and high speed. If your car's not perfectly balanced and settled, you don't have confidence in it, then it's really hard to push lap times to where A.J. is. Obviously, they have their car working well. He can commit to these fast corners bacause its' so high speed. You know, we'll try to get our car there tomorrow."

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Thanks to a combination of morning showers and multiple wrecks around Finning Intl. Raceway, RuSport's A.J. Allmendinger held on for the pole position w/his time from the Friday(QS-1) session, w/a time of 58.628 secs.(121.150 mph); indeed, none of the racers matched their QS-1 times today, so Friday's qualifying times stood for the final grid. Alongside Allmendinger will be the series' newest race-winner, RuSport teammate Justin Wilson. 2003 series champion Paul Tracy will start third alongside Newman-Haas's Oriol Servia. Servia's teammate, reigning champion Sebastien Bourdais, will start an uncharacteristic 10th(outside Row 5).

Other notable starting positions for Sunday's West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton:5--2002 series champion Cristiano da Matta, 6--Alex Tagliani, 7--1996 series titleist Jimmy Vasser, and 14--American Ryan Hunter-Reay.

The race itself will be tomorrow, July 17, at 3:30 PM EDT(19:30 EDT), w/a race summary, plus commentaries where appropriate.

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Here's my Saturday commentary on ChampCar's day in Edmonton...

#1--Did they ask the FIA if they could change anything? After a long late-night session, ChampCar officials made some small "tweaks" to the course at Finning Intl. Raceway, mostly adding tirewalls btwn. turns 3-4, through turn 9, and turn 13. They also removed the pit-entrance chicane designed to slow the cars down as they exit the track. Come to think of it, I don't believe Kalkhoven, Forsythe and Co. asked Max Mosely whether they could do that...did they?

#2--Did they figure out turn one yet? After some on-track incursions, most notably btwn. Andrew Ranger and Mario Dominguez yesterday, they added more corner workers to signal drivers as they passed by. It didn't help Dominguez, though, as he had another incident, this time w/Alex Tagliani. Here's what occured: as Tag was leaving the pits at 80 mph, he waved several cars and then took off. Dominguez, however, was going by at 120 mph, and ran into Tag's left-rear tire, sending both off-course. It was deemed a racing incident, and neither lost their fast lap.

#3--Where in the world is SeaBass? Unfortunately, whenever ChampCar goes to a new venue, someone ends up "rolling snake-eyes". This time, Sebastien Bourdais's the unlucky one. He starts 10th for Sunday's race, his lowest ever start in 2+ yrs. as a ChampCar driver. I wouldn't put too much into it, though...at Denver last year, he started P1, spun the car in turn one, fell to last, and charged all the way back to win, passing Paul Tracy for the lead w/5 laps to go. He'll find a way to the front..

As before, I'll post a race summary after the race, w/post-race observations and driver quotes to follow.

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There's a line in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities:"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." For polesitter A.J. Allmendinger, it was the worst of times at the end of the race, while for pts. leader Sebastien Bourdais, A.J.'s miscue plus that of Justin Wilson gave the Le Mans native a gift victory in Edmonton at the inaugural running of the West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton.

At the drop of the green flag, Allmendinger(#10 Western Union Ford-Cos./Lola) took off and built an early lead , with Paul Tracy(#3 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L) took second from Justin Wilson(#9 CDW Canada FC/L) with a bold move in turn 1. Further back, Oriol Servia(#2 PacifiCare FC/L) and Alex Tagliani(#15 Aussie Vineyards FC/L) traded 4th and 5th, while Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L) made his way up to eighth and then passed by Jimmy Vasser a lap later to take seventh. After a change for tires, suspension troubles knock series rookie Andrew Ranger out of the race, followed by 2002 series champion Cristiano da Matta. Both would finish 18th and 17th respectively.

After the first round of pitstops, Paul Tracy took the point, followed by Wilson, who beat Allmendinger to the exit of pitroad, with Servia and Tagliani 4th and 5th. After the start was waved-off on lap 29(the first wave-off of the year), Tracy jumped back out to the point, Wilson now a quarter-sec. behind and beginning to press on the Canadian. On lap 40, Allmendinger would set fast lap of the race(up to that point) at 1:01.045(115.540 mph) as Tracy and Wilson continued their on-track duel. However, on lap 49, Tracy overshoots the corner in turn 11, letting Wilson slip by for the lead. Allmendinger took advantage as well, dropping Tracy to third. The next car to go out was that of RocketSports' Ryan hunter-Reay, who retired on lap 52 w/electrical trouble.

The second and final round of stops began w/Wilson pitting from first. Allmendinger retook the lead, Tracy 10 secs. back. Wilson re-enters in 7th. Then, Tracy pits from second, followed by A.J. a lap later. Servia takes the point, only to pit from 1st on lap 58. Along w/Servia were the cars of Tagliani, Dominguez, Glock, and Bremer--Tagliani ran out of fuel, coasting into his pit stall. After re-firing the engine, Tag leaves pitroad. Finally, Bourdais takes the point, only to pit from 1st on lap 62, and in an F1-like tactic, charges out of the pits, just beating Servia through turn 1.

With the pitstops completed, the top 5 order was:1-Allmendinger, 2-Wilson, 3-Bourdais, 4-Servia and 5-Tracy. A.J. led Wilson by a second-and-a-half, with Bourdais over 20 secs. back. However, a caution caused by Bjorn Wirdheim's contact w/the turn 7 tirewalls brought out a caution, bunching up the field. It was then that the race took an interesting turn. As the cars headed for the restart, Wilson spins out, dropping back to 8th for the green. On the next lap, as Allmendinger and Bourdais are fighting for the lead, Allmendinger bangs into the wall going through turn 11, giving the lead to Bourdais. A visibly dejected Allmendinger brought the mortally wounded car into pitlane, having lost the gearbox in the bangup, retiring on lap 80 when he had the race victory in his grasp. From then on, it was Bourdais, who held off his teammate Oriol Servia for his second victory of the year, with Servia a close second. Behind them, in third was Tracy, with Allmendinger's teammate Wilson finishing 4th and Tracy's temmate Mario Dominguez ending up 5th.

The points table going to San Jose for Round 8 shows Bourdais stretching out his lead over Tracy to 21 pts. w/justin Wilson in 3rd, 30 markers back. Servia and Allmendinger are 4th and 5th, 47 and 60 pts. back of Bourdais. Round Eight of the Champ Car World Series is slated for Sunday, July 31st--The Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose, set in a downtown street circuit in the heart of San Jose.

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Boy, was this race exciting....

1--A.J., meet Bourdais' first 2 CCWS starts. Back in 2003, then-rookie Sebastien Bourdais seemed to have wins locked up in St. Petersburg and Monterrey, only to throw em' away w/rookie miscues. Today, A.J. Allmendinger got a taste of what SeaBass probably felt like. Having the win locked up seemingly, he made a small error in turn 11, smacks the wall, bust the left-rear susp. and fries the gearbox, retiring and from what the announcers were saying, screaming at himself for the error. When asked about it, he said, visibly shaken, "I just threw it away. I can't say anymore than that right now and it just shouldn't have ended this way."

2--Record crowd. Last week, the series announced that over 160 thousand people attended the Molson Indy Toronto. This week, over 200,000+ people attended ChampCar's first visit to the heart of Alberta, w/80,000+ watching Sunday's race. For my part, they definitely got their money's worth.

3--With today's win, Sebastien Bourdais achieved a piece of ChampCar immortality. With 12 wins in only 39 starts, Bourdais eclipsed by three the record set by 97-98' series champion Alex Zanardi. It took the great Zanardi forty-two starts to achieve his 12th win. Bourdais, if he wins the series title, can join Zanardi, Rick Mears(1981-1982), Bobby Rahal(1986-1987), and Gil de Ferran(2000-2001) as the only racers to win back-to-back CCWS titles.

Driver quotes from the podium finishers:

1=Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L):"Just pure joy to be winning this first race here. I really couldn't believe it when I saw Justin spinning (under yellow) in front of me and then A.J. making a really small mistake. I know how it feels to chase your first win and not achieve it. It happened to me (twice) in 2003, and I'm sure he's devastated. He probably deserved this one, he was fast all weekend long. You know, we just (collected) ourselves today and just made a mistake-free race, just took the benefits of everyone's mistakes. That was just unbelieveable."

2=Oriol Servia(#2 PacifiCare FC/L):"I'm actually quite happy. In Toronto, you saw that I wasn't happy with my second place bacause for a while I thought I was going to win it. This one, I mean, all weekend, we were almost up there, but the RuSport guys were faster. I mean, during the race I knew was going to be a little bit of a survival race. Mistake-free was definitely going to bring me a podium, me starting fourth."

3=Paul Tracy(#3 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L):"People were saying over the winter this wasn't a place to have a race; it should've been another venue like Vancouver. This is the biggest-attended race that I think Canada has ever had. It's an unbelieveable event. Greg (MacDonald) has done a great job, the promoter, did all the promotion. The guy's a hard worker. He's done a great job up here. I have to appauld the whole city of Edmonton for everything they've done for our sport, for ChampCar."