Bourdais aims to win title early

The Frenchman had predicted that the title battle would go to the wire when he was headed by Robert Doornbos and Will Power during the middle part of the season, but he now feels that he can continue to pull away from the pair in the standings.

"It is great for me that Robert and Will didn't finish on the podium," Bourdais said after taking victory at Zolder on Sunday. "I guess we got it all this weekend.

"But there are still four races to go. We have to keep on plugging away and hopefully we can wrap this up before the end of the season."

Bourdais, who will switch to Formula One next year with Toro Rosso, has admitted that he is still not going to take too many risks in the final few races despite his desire to win the title as soon as possible.

"The truth is as long as Robert and Will are not in front of us, then it's going to be a good points day," he added.

"It wasn't exactly the target to go after the win, and we were not going to risk everything for the win, but we would obviously go for it if we could."

Bourdais leads Doornbos by 53 points in the standings with four races remaining.