Champ Car Half-Term Report

OK, it's a little over half-term, as we're eight races into a 14-race season, but I'm paid to write, not add up. And besides, I didn't want to report that after seven rounds we'd only had two race winners.

Hell, even Formula One had had more than that.

Still, after the first few rounds of the Champ Car season, some of the media began to wonder if we'd even have two winners.

At Long Beach, many onlookers felt resigned. Sebastien Bourdais, double and reigning champion, had walked it. RuSPORT looked as far away from nailing a decent raceday streetcourse set-up as ever - Justin Wilson's fastest lap had been almost a second slower than the winner's.

And to be frank, it hadn't been a great race, Mario Dominguez having triggered an accident at the first corner that eliminated four of the leading runners - Bruno Junqueira, AJ Allmendinger, Paul Tracy and Oriol Servia.

Then when Bourdais won the next three events - even nailing Milwaukee for the first time in his four races there - we assumed that Wilson, Tracy, Allmendinger and company were fighting over runner-up spot, and that Sebastien would become the first driver since Ted Horn (1946-48) to clinch three consecutive Champ Car titles.

Well, he might still do that. Indeed, if he does, it will hardly be filed under 'surprise'. But now it appears the Newman/Haas Racing ace faces a two-pronged attack, from Allmendinger and Wilson.

Allmendinger, who was fired by RuSPORT after four races has taken to the Forsythe Championship Racing team like a duck to water, and promptly won the next three races and lies third, 28 points behind Bourdais. Wilson, on the strength of winning in Edmonton last weekend and finishing second four times, is in second, only 23 points away from his former Formula 3000 rival. This could get exciting.

Newman/Haas Racing

How the hell do they do that? Whatever situation this team is put into, it seems to come up smelling of roses. After he led from pole to chequer at Long Beach, most people outside the team rejoiced when Sebastien Bourdais lined up fifth on the grid at Houston.

He was going to have to work hard here, being behind two Forsythe cars, his own teammate and AJ Allmendinger. But in the course of the race he cleanly passed Paul Tracy, pressured Mario Dominguez into a mistake, and went on to win.

At Monterrey, Mexico he didn't panic even when he ran behind the two RuSPORT cars, achieved superior fuel consumption, allowing him to let rip with fast laps as his rivals pitted, absorbed pressure from Justin Wilson and won.

At Milwaukee, despite a puncture necessitating a stop under green-flag (racing) conditions, he won and would have lapped everyone had Champ Car not thrown a full course yellow for some mythical debris at Turn 2 in the closing stages of the race.

No doubt about it, part of Newman/Haas Racing's advantage lies with the man in the cockpit who rarely makes errors, and is blindingly fast. That opens up a whole range of options in terms of strategy, as does his car's absurdly good fuel consumption. And then there's the simple fact that Newman/Haas screws up less often than any other team.

So what has happened in the last four races? Well, Bourdais was caught wrong-footed by hmm... let's be kind and say a 'misunderstanding' between pole-sitting teammate Junqueira and the race-starter in Portland. Down to seventh at the start, Bourdais saved fuel, then charged, but couldn't pass Wilson for second in the closing stages.

Undoubtedly, he had the pace to threaten winner Allmendinger, but he never got the chance. It was disappointing therefore to witness his churlish behaviour on the podium and in the post-race press conference.

Bourdais had more reason to feel aggrieved at Cleveland, for he was the one least to blame for the opening lap fracas that ended with him balancing Tracy's car on his head, and a definite podium turned into a DNF.

At Toronto, it would have been interesting to see how long he could have held off Allmendinger and Tracy had his bid for second place at Turn 1, lap 1, proved successful. It didn't, but he admitted to himself it was one of those races where he had to 'think championship' and took third. Last race, at Edmonton, RuSPORT simply had a superior car at the crucial times.

Looking at the remaining six rounds on the calendar, there's not a single one where either he or the team have struggled in the recent past, and top-four finishes are near inevitable in all of them should he stay out of trouble. Given that he has a 23-point lead in the series, he can afford to play it conservative on raceday, and avoid two-car incidents - although Cleveland proved that isn't always possible.

What Bourdais can't rely on - where at least one of his championship rivals can - is support from his teammate. That isn't to say Bruno Junqueira isn't willing to aid his partner. It's just that, there have been too many times this year where he hasn't seen which way his teammate went. And the frustrating thing for his team, his fans and doubtless the man himself, is that he still has moments of excellence.

Witness his beautiful, perfect lap that earned him pole at Portland. Or how about qualifying at Milwaukee, where, after an accident, Junqueira was left with a rebuilt and untried new car? His first flying run was called off, so that the wayward handling could be cured in time for an end-of-session bid.

The price you pay for such a tactic is that, unlike the majority of your rivals, you have just one flyer rather than two in which to set your grid time. But Bruno was up for it, and grabbed a front-row slot.

To be fair, the second Newman/Haas car has been the victim of bad luck too. At Toronto it was a misfire. At Milwaukee and Long Beach, he was the innocent victim of Dominguez's over-ambition. But on the days when he isn't afflicted by bad luck, he needs to be right there, hassling Bourdais, and taking points away from his rivals. Otherwise it's hard to see the team retaining him for a fifth season.

Forsythe Championship Racing

The only team to have beaten Newman/Haas over a season-long campaign in the last four seasons are Forsythe. Forsythe started the season optimistic that if they could simply shake off the bad luck that had afflicted them in 2005, then Paul Tracy could fight Sebastien Bourdais for the championship, right down to the final chequer.

But the first four races ended Tracy's hopes for the title. As Bourdais won the lot, PT was taken out of the two races he expected to be his best - Long Beach and Milwaukee - and ironically finished Monterrey, where the car was no match for Newman/Haas and RuSPORT. At Houston, his favoured harder suspension settings didn't suit the excessively bumpy track, but he at least salvaged second.

And then Tracy's teammate Mario Dominguez got the boot, AJ Allmendinger arrived, and suddenly Forsythe was a winning team once more. The American won Portland - against the expectations of the team who had never won there before, a true driver's victory.

At Cleveland, he took pole, kept away from the collision between Bourdais, Tracy and Junqueira, while the other two potential winners - Justin Wilson and Oriol Servia were limited by their own problems. And win three, saw him beat Tracy in a straight fight to head a Forsythe 1-2. At Edmonton he wasn't quite on the pace of PT, Bourdais and Wilson, and was also quite ill, so did a fine job to scoop third.

And what of Tracy during Allmendinger's hot run? Well, if some 'experts' were to be believed, he was either (a) washed up and cracking under the strain, or (b) never was the driver his victory tally would suggest.

So much for experts, huh? Yes, at Portland he and engineer Eric Zeto were wrong with their set-up, but Cleveland, he could have won, and Toronto was going to be won by whichever Forsythe driver started ahead. Tracy, who had struggled all year with the red tyres commonly used for qualifying, qualified behind and therefore finished behind.

And at Edmonton, he had the edge in pace on Allmendinger all weekend. Too late for a title charge, of course, but maybe Tracy's year is starting to turn around.

Allmendinger though, is a legitimate championship contender, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure, especially on courses where - as at Edmonton - his rivals Bourdais and Wilson have superior cars. One suspects that 2006-style Allmendinger will keep his cool and make the most of what he's given.

RuSPORT

Justin Wilson is a man who certainly doesn't need to be taught how to make the best of any given circumstance. Look at the way he took the fight to Sebastien Bourdais in Monterrey, despite an inferior car. Look at the way he used being stuck behind Paul Tracy in Edmonton to conserve fuel, then exploited the great handling of his RuSPORT car to hunt down Bourdais and pressure him into a mistake.

Just as well he got that win, though, otherwise the questions over RuSPORT's competitiveness as a team would have got louder and louder. The season up to that point had been full of reality checks, notably on street circuits for which the squad had strengthened its engineering department in the off-season.

Bourdais smoked Wilson in Long Beach, Newman/Haas and Forsythe blew RuSPORT away in Houston, and Wilson had no answer for the Forsythe pair or Bourdais in Toronto on race day, despite setting pole there. In his words, the car was simply 'burning the tyres off.'

Then of course there was the apparent embarrassment of firing AJ Allmendinger, who promptly went and won three races with a rival team, and replacing him with a former champion, who so far has struggled. Cristiano da Matta has a lot to prove right now.

"I agree we should have found our sweet spot before now," said the Brazilian last weekend. "We haven't made as much of an improvement as we hoped for when I joined the team. I'm asking for something different from my car than AJ did, and it's not easy to find without testing. I'd say we have a top five or top six car everywhere, but not a top three car."

Does Wilson have a top three car though? Well, he should be fine at the road courses that remain on the calendar - Montreal, Road America and Mexico City. RuSPORT have shown competitively there before, and Justin is quick on any given course. But can he mix it with Newman/Haas and Forsythe on the streets of San Jose, Denver and Surfers Paradise?

Like Wilson said at the start of the year, finding a good streetcourse set-up isn't easy for a two-year-old Champ Car team when there's never a chance to test and you're up against a team with 22 years' experience...

PKV Racing

Last year, PKV Racing struggled for consistency. From the high of winning Portland and taking pole at Milwaukee, there were way too many races where the team's cars simply seemed anonymous - or disappeared in accidents on the first lap.

The overall picture from the early races in 2006 didn't look a whole lot more rosy, and the atmosphere within PKV was far from upbeat. Team manager Steve Krisiloff had wanted the team owners to sign Franck Montagny and Ryan Briscoe - who he felt were the best drivers available - and had made no efforts to disguise his disappointment at working with Oriol Servia and Katherine Legge.

Legendary Champ Car engineer Jim McGee, as general manager, was thus asked to fire his long-time friend Krisiloff and when he said he'd rather walk too than do that, he had to go.

If that seemed like Dan Pettit, Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser (the P, K and V of PKV Racing) had shot themselves in the foot but it appeared to make little difference to the team's competitiveness. The inconsistency continued much as before.

There were flashes of promise: Servia was damn fast during the race in Houston, and his fastest lap was beaten only by Sebastien Bourdais. And at Milwaukee, PKV Racing's great set-up helped Servia and Legge to qualify seventh and eighth, and finish fifth and sixth.

But on either side of Milwaukee though were Monterrey and Portland. In the former, Servia's car was embarrassingly off the pace, apparently without grip. A bemused Oriol said afterwards: "I was driving into corners aiming for the apex, but by the middle of the corner, I was saying to myself 'Oh look, there's the apex over there. Bye-bye.'"

In the latter event, Oriol crashed twice in practice, at the same point on the circuit - for reasons as yet uncertain - and from 12th on the grid made little-to-no impression.

And yet... if I were to draw up my top eight drivers of the year so far, Servia would be in it. He's done an outstanding job, never bitched about the team despite being able to draw direct comparison with Newman/Haas with whom he drove last year, and has never given less than his all. Finally, in the last three races, he has started to see some reward for his efforts. Indeed, he might feasibly have won Cleveland.

That race, the sixth of the season, coincided with the first appearance of Mark Johnson, who by Toronto was confirmed as PKV's new team ,anager. He is a man with Champ Car experience (PPI Motorsports) and one who has had huge success managing teams in AMA Supercross and Motocross. His balls and lack of bull should make PKV a lean, mean fighting machine.

While the team fluctuated in form, it was unsurprising that Legge suffered the brunt of it, not least because she does not yet have the experience to always know whether she or the car is producing the lap times, good or bad.

The crucial thing that the Briton has done is prove that on the driving side, she is emphatically not out of her depth in Champ Cars, even if her lack of experience on the technical side inevitably makes it harder for her crew to improve her car.

Overanxious to improve her qualifying form, she often overdrives but she has been paring back the gap in qualifying performance to her veteran teammate, and in Edmonton, she looked pretty much on Servia's pace until problems with traffic in final qualifying. A handful of top 10 grid slots before season's end would do her confidence a power of good.

CTE Racing-HVM

Keith Wiggins' team that took a step forward over the winter, and according to some, took a huge step forward at the Portland test, which fell between the first and second rounds of the season. What that step is, of course, is a closely guarded secret that one or two other teams would dearly love to know.

Had Nelson Philippe's third place in Milwaukee been his only standout drive, you'd have put it down to HVM using the set-up that allowed Ryan Hunter-Reay to dominate at that circuit two years earlier. But in fact Philippe was fourth in Houston, he and rookie teammate Dan Clarke were eighth and sixth respectively at Portland (sandwiching Paul Tracy!), both of them might have finished on the podium at Cleveland, and Philippe could have repeated that at Toronto.

Yeah, yeah, woulda-coulda-shoulda. But at least the pace is there. It's a hell of a lot easier to get a quick car to the finish, than to make a slow reliable car into a podium finisher. And it's rarely been reliability that has cost the team, but rather errors.

Philippe crashed out of the last two races, Toronto and Edmonton, but then again it was his team that screwed him over in Cleveland by running him a lap too long on his fuel load, and consequently Nelson sputtered to a halt out on the circuit.

Overall though, Philippe and CTE seem to form a perfect combination. He has come of age this year; the team has given him the car to prove his talent. Expect more podiums soon.

Clarke, of course, has had an incident-packed season, to put it mildly. To put it honestly, a single-seater driver hasn't had this many incidents packed into one half-season since Andrea de Cesaris was in Formula One.

Clarke has overstepped the limit several times, in practice, qualifying and races, but his instinct to run before he can walk should not be criticised. Nor should his pace: he can clearly drive a Champ Car bloody fast. What should be criticised is that having found the limit by overstepping it, he needs to remember where that limit is. A bit more humility towards his colleagues when his over-exuberance takes them down with him wouldn't go amiss either.

But, no question Clarke has proven he has the potential. It's now down to him whether he channels it into something constructive.

Team Australia

Luck has frequently deserted Derrick Walker, Craig Gore and their band of men and women this year, and that is the main reason why Alex Tagliani isn't fourth in the title race, and that Will Power has only recently taken control of the chase for the Rookie of the Year title.

At Long Beach, Tagliani finished third, but at Houston a problem with his drinks bottle jammed his throttle open while running fourth and sent him into the wall. At Monterrey he took fifth, but then in Milwaukee he crashed in practice.

Normally when Tag crashes, you assume it was a car problem, so infrequent are his errors. But this time it seems the fault lay with him. Such was the force of the wreck, the tub was damaged beyond repair, and the lack of a spare meant he couldn't start the race. The real bummer was that such had been his pace, he would have been Sebastien Bourdais' closest challenger for pole and victory that weekend.

Power too suffered bad luck in his first oval race: having qualified a remarkable fifth, a driveshaft failed him on race day, but he was at least able to take that momentum to Portland where he outqualified his teammate... only to have his gearbox fail during the race. Lengthy repairs ensued, and he rejoined in time to set fastest lap.

At Cleveland, Tagliani led, and eventually finished fourth, while Power too had a strong event until goofing up while battling Dominguez. At Toronto, the Team Australia rose like a phoenix from the ashes of Tagliani's warm-up shunt, when a broken wishbone pitched the No. 15 car into the wall.

A stunning pre-race rebuild was rewarded by Tagliani's scintillating drive that resulted in sixth place and fastest lap, chased home by Power. Power then came to pre-eminence in Edmonton, and having been a top six contender all weekend, he drove error-free to sixth, while a baffled Tagliani grappled with a set-up that gave him little faith in the car's handling, and eventually collided with Bourdais while being lapped.

Tagliani just needs something to go well for a whole weekend to have him challenging for podiums again. Power just needs to keep doing what he did in Edmonton and he'll have the Rookie title sewn up. The team as a whole just needs some luck - and a bit more money for some spares.

Conquest Racing

Some of us were bemused by the fact that for much of the season, Andrew Ranger held fourth in the championship, and with sweeping generalisations, we put this down to too many other drivers and or teams screwing up.

And to a certain extent that was true... except the flip-side of that is that Ranger and Conquest were not screwing up, and instead simply the making the most of what fate dealt them each weekend. Eric Bachelart's team generally presents Ranger with a very good and consistent car, and either he or the team appears to be improving their act in qualifying too. Andrew started sixth in Toronto, and eighth in Edmonton.

I have been critical of Ranger in the past, believing he isn't making the most of a strong natural talent, and he still has to improve his feedback and work ethic in order to help team manager Chris Mower make serious progress with the cars over the course of the weekend.

But as a driver - in terms of arriving and driving - Ranger clearly has a lot of ability, and appears to keep his composure better than ever. Should he improve his all-round game, and keep his focus on Champ Cars, he could be a future star of the series.

Rookie teammate Charles Zwolsman is a trickier man to judge, because he has days on Ranger's pace, and days where he's not on the same level. That goes with the rookie territory, to some extent, but Charles has had fitness problems too, and when some of your mental capacity is taken up as you exceed your physical abilities, it can only be detrimental to your racing.

Zwolsman didn't become Atlantic Champion last year by being a muppet, so clearly he has talent. Whether that makes him a potential Champ Car ace, though, remains open to question. He needs to prove it to Bachelart, Mower and more importantly, himself.

Dale Coyne Racing

Attracting a former Champ Car title-winner to his team was Dale Coyne's biggest coup for many years, and Cristiano da Matta revealed the team's potential with fifth place in Long Beach. But four races into the year, 'Shorty' had gone, RuSPORT swooping for him as a replacement for AJ Allmendinger.

I for one didn't expect Mario Dominguez, depressed at being fired by Forsythe, to summon the effort to give his all at Dale Coyne, but in fact he's done them proud. Had he not been the victim of Dan Clarke's assault at Cleveland, he would have finished second!

As Coyne's former driver, Ronnie Bremer mentioned on autosport.com last week, DCR does appear to have taken a step up this year. But no question either, that Dominguez is doing the team proud.

Dominguez's teammate is Jan Heylen who has been highly impressive at most races, treading that fine line between pace and prudence, and regularly qualifying around 12th fastest. Unfortunately, at the last two races, his car has been assaulted by errant rivals, but in Cleveland he finished a remarkable fifth, while in Portland his fastest lap matched that of Paul Tracy and was faster than anything produced by such as Oriol Servia and Alex Tagliani. Seriously impressive.

Rocketsports

Not a lot to say here, other than that owner Paul Gentilozzi is paying the price of having two rookies on board. Nicky Pastorelli and Tonis Kasemets are making too many mistakes and have nothing against which to gauge their performance from session to session.

Kasemets, who only started his season in Portland (the fifth round) looks to be nervous of crashing, and as runner-up in last year's Atlantic championship, should be doing better than Pastorelli, who is unfamiliar with all the circuits having come from Europe. Instead, Nicky is the pace-setter within the team, but all too often he is messing up too.

A dose of confidence would do him good, but he'd need a good result for that to happen. His one chance of that this year came in Portland, where he surprised everyone by qualifying 11th. However, a rear tyre was punctured by a rival on the opening lap, and he was coming from behind thereafter.

Elsewhere, Rocketsports have generally been at the very back of the grid, and the 2005 days of running Timo Glock to the Rookie of the Year title seem an awful long time ago now. Antonio Pizzonia qualified 10th and set sixth fastest lap of the race in his one-off event for the team in Long Beach this year, but since then the team has had to stick with drivers who have money.

Kasemets has used up half of his six-race deal with Rocketsports, and will not compete in the next three races, at San Jose, Denver and Montreal. We wait with interest to see whom Gentilozzi can get in as a replacement. If it is someone of the quality of Pizzonia or Franck Montagny - such rumours continue - then this team could yet have something to celebrate in 2006.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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