Bourdais sews up title

With a 67-point cushion heading into today's Surfers Paradise race, the Frenchman only needed to take the green flag to claim two points and sew up the title.

This he duly did, ensuring that he becomes the first driver to win back-to-back championships since Gil de Ferran achieved the feat for Team Penske in 2000-01.

Bourdais has had a sometimes turbulent season but came on strong in midsummer with a trio of wins in Edmonton, San Jose and Denver.

For much of the year he fought a tense duel with perennial nemesis Paul Tracy but the Canadian squandered any realistic hope of regaining the title he won in 2003 when he crashed out of the lead at Denver in August.

Bourdais has had one hand on the Vanderbilt Cup since the eleventh-hour cancellation of the South Korea race at the end of September, which gave his rivals only two races instead of three in which to surmount his lead.

That was a stroke of good fortune, but on the basis of his dogged points-scoring in the early part of the season and his supremacy in the second half, few would dispute that Bourdais is once again a worthy champion.