Bourdais takes first Milwaukee win

It was anything but a straightforward victory for the reigning champion though, despite having the fastest car. He had to pit early and out of sequence due to a deflating tyre on lap 21, sending him a lap down on the field. But some great passes and fierce battles saw him back in the lead by lap 101, and he continued his momentum.

Bourdais was on his way to lap second placed runner Wilson when a yellow flag for debris at Turn 2 bunched the field up once more. At the restart however, Wilson had nothing for his rival, and he was forced to defend from Nelson Philippe who went on to score his first ever Champ Car podium.

The CTE Racing-HVM driver was the star of the show, enduring a long hard battle with Oriol Servia in the first half of the race, and passing and repassing compatriot Bourdais as Sebastien came through the field.

AJ Allmendinger was a slightly subdued fourth, falling behind Wilson in the pit stops and then losing time on restarts, and eventually being swamped by the Oriol Servia-Philippe-Bourdais combo as he ran high onto the marbles and losing momentum as he sought to clean his tyres.

PKV Racing pair Servia and Katherine Legge finished fifth and sixth, one and two laps down respectively, when the team miscued their pitstops when the pitlane opened during a yellow flag period and they pitted with the leaders rather than going round to make up the lap.

Forsythe Championship Racing lost both Paul Tracy and Mario Dominguez in a collision with Newman/Haas Racing's Bruno Junqueira on the second lap. Junqueira was also eliminated.

Pos  Driver              Team                  Time
 1.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas       197 laps
 2.  Justin Wilson       RuSPORT            + 3.612
 3.  Nelson Philippe     CTE-HVM            + 5.648
 4.  AJ Allmendinger     RuSPORT           + 18.504
 5.  Oriol Servia        PKV                + 1 lap
 6.  Katherine Legge     PKV               + 2 laps
 7.  Andrew Ranger       Conquest          + 2 laps
 8.  Dan Clarke          CTE-HVM           + 6 laps
 9.  Charles Zwolsman    Conquest          + 6 laps
10.  Nicky Pastorelli    Rocketsports     + 13 laps
11.  Will Power          Team Australia   + 42 laps
12.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne      + 130 laps
13.  Cristiano da Matta  Dale Coyne      + 166 laps
14.  Mario Dominguez     Forsythe        + 193 laps
15.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas     + 196 laps
16.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe        + 196 laps
17.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia         DNS