Allmendinger: RuSport up for a fight

The RuSPORT driver, who described his two-day test at Sebring this week as his 'best test all year', believes Sebastien Bourdais' dominance of the opening round of the 2006 Champ Car World Series was misleading.

The French Newman/Haas driver took pole by 0.322 seconds, led the Long Beach Grand Prix for all but four laps and set a fastest race lap 0.93 seconds quicker than his nearest rival.

Allmendinger's teammate Justin Wilson was runner-up, 14.1 seconds behind at the chequer, but Allmendinger is certain he could have made more of a fight of it.

"If we hadn't been taken out in the first corner shunt, I think we'd have ended up second - and closer to Bourdais than Justin. I'm not saying we'd have beaten Sebastien: he was exceptional," Allmendinger told autosport.com.

"But I reckon I'd have been 0.3sec to 0.5sec off per lap, whereas Justin was around a second a lap behind. He just didn't like his car's handling, whereas I was pretty happy with where my car was at."

Allmendinger believes he should have been on the front row, and out of harm's way when the first turn pile-up happened.

"I'm not bitching about the accident. I mean, this is Turn 1 at Long Beach and there's 18 drivers trying to be at the front, first race of the year, cold tyres and so on. Things like that can always happen. But really I should have been gone.

"When Paul [Tracy] crashed in qualifying, I was on my hot lap so I had to go through his debris and that was my flyer gone, otherwise I'd have been up with Sebastien at the front, and from there I'd have been able to beat [second Newman/Haas driver] Bruno Junqueira. I think we had him handled."

Allmendinger, who has yet to win a Champ Car race, believes that the new 1.615-mile Reliant Park course at Houston will give RuSPORT a better chance of threatening the Newman/Haas team.

"It's a new track for everyone, so Newman/Haas isn't going to have 20 years of track data to fall back on. They'll still be right up there of course because they're the best, but honestly our test at Sebring was real productive.

"We kept chipping away at it, a tenth here, a tenth there, and Chris [Lercher, Allmendinger's race engineer] and I ended up happy; it was pretty confidence-building.

"The most important thing at Houston will be qualifying. From the pictures and diagrams I've seen, that track is going to be pretty tight.

"I know they've changed the push-to-pass so we're running 725bhp and have 75 extra on the button, but it's still gonna be hard to get past a guy that's doing the same thing - leaning on that button. If you want a top race result at Houston, you're going to have to qualify well, simple as that."

Allmendinger states that he has held to his philosophy of not relying too heavily on his vastly more experienced teammate's feedback, one of the reasons he believes he struggled to match him on occasions such as at Portland and Mexico City.

"Chris and I decided towards the end of last season that we weren't going to just go the same way as Justin on set-up, because a lot of times although it was quick for Justin, it wasn't working for me. Sure, if he gets a quick set-up we'll try it, but if I'm not comfortable with how it handles, we'll modify it to suit me and my driving style."

"It's really important to do things our way, because we have to be in the top four or five every single race, and that's going to get harder as the year goes on. At the moment the pack is kinda divided up into teams.

"But as the season goes on, hot rookies like Will Power and Dan Clarke are going to be up there knocking on the door of the top six each race, and if you're set up is slightly off, you'll have those guys to contend with."