Bourdais wins in Portland

Strapping back into a Champ Car just a few days after running in the 24 Hours of Le Mans might be a daunting task for most racers, but Sebastien Bourdais handled the entire experience with ease, capping his return to the the Champ Car World Series with a dominant victory.

Bourdais took the pole on Saturday and outraced a snarling pack into the always-tight first turn, and went on to lead 85 of 94 laps. The Frenchman used a strong mid-race run to build a gap of over eight seconds over team-mate Junqueira, then outlasted a furious late-race rush from his Brazilian counterpart to claim the win.

It took a couple of starts before Bourdais could begin his romp around the 1.969-mile Portland layout, with the Festival Curves chicane causing its standard yellow flag incident on the first time through. Michel Jourdain Jr was the only victim of the bumping as the 750hp turbocharged machines slowed from 175mph to 60 to get through the trio of turns.

The restart was equally interesting as Mario Dominguez slid into Rodolfo Lavin's path on the front stretch. Lavin had nowhere to go and hit the rear of the Herdez Lola, sending him in front of oncoming traffic.

That would be the final caution of the day. Bourdais again took the lead from Junqueira and Tracy. Bourdais extended his advantage with each passing lap, building a comfortable lead as the frontrunners prepared for their first round of pit stops. Junqueira and Bourdais pitted before Tracy, who was able to run three to four laps more per fuel load than the Newman/Haas duo, but lapped traffic prevented him from making any noticeable gain on the leaders.

The mid point of the race saw traffic cause fluctuation among the leaders. Junqueira closed to within a second of the leader at one point as Bourdais got caught behind a lapped car, but the Brazilian was unable to get close enough to mount a serious challenge.

There were more battles going on behind the leaders. Rookies Justin Wilson and A.J. Allmendinger fought tooth-and-nail for a top-five finish in a war that included a side-by-side drag race down pit lane after the second round of stops.

Bourdais turned what had been a 1.5s lead into one of nearly 6s after his second stop. Bourdais' stop briefly promoted Tracy to the lead, where he would stay for the next six laps before his own fuel stop dropped him back to third. Meanwhile Tracy's Forsythe Championship Racing team-mate Patrick Carpentier used an alternate pit stop strategy to overcome qualifying problems to climb into the top five.

The French-Canadian was the first of the lead lap cars to make his third and final mandatory green flag stop of the day, giving him an outside chance to steal a podium finish, but Carpentier would eventually settle for fourth place a championship point for gaining the most positions in the event.

Junqueira was the first of the top three to make his last stop, 18 laps from the flag, and entering the pits 8.8s in arrears of his team-mate Bourdais. He strapped on his last set of Bridgestone alternate tyres - the softer compound of Potenzas designed to yield quicker lap times - which gave Junqueira a fighting chance at closing down his team-mate.

The Brazilian put the softer tyres to good use, lopping nearly half a second per lap off of Bourdais' lead. With nine laps to go the lead was down to 4s, it was under 2s five laps later. But eventually Junqueira was forced to settle for the runner-up spot ahead of Tracy.

"I knew that Bruno would have a shot to catch me at the end when he put on a set of alternates, because those tyres were so fast and I had the primary tyres on because I used up my alternates," said Bourdais. "However, we were able to pull it off."

"We were just following Sebastien (Bourdais) most of the race. I got caught up in traffic, and Sebastien got a big gap from that," Junqueira explained. "After our last pit stop, we put on a new set of the alternates. I thought I would catch him in the end; however, I ran into more traffic and ran out of time. But we only finished a second behind Sebastien, so it was close."

Tracy came home in third ahead of his team-mate Carpentier, giving Tracy his first podium since his Long Beach victory to start the season. The rookie battle between Wilson and Allmendinger went on throughout the second half of the race, but the 2003 Toyota Atlantic champion never quite found a way to get around the former F1 driver who took fifth.

Alex Tagliani and Jimmy Vasser followed in seventh and eighth respectively, while Mario Haberfeld and Roberto Gonzalez rounded out the top 10.