Monterrey: Tracy wins again

The Canadian harried pole winner Sebastien Bourdais in the first stint before taking over at the front to lead 69 of the 85 laps on the way to his 21st career Champ Car race win. Local favourite Michel Jourdain finished second for the second race in a row, while Alex Tagliani finished third for the new Rocketsports team.

More significantly for Tracy, it marked the best start to a season in his 13-year Champ Car career. He holds a 43-32 advantage over Jourdain after two rounds of the CART championship.

"It's quite a different scenario for me," said Tracy, a self-admitted slow starter. "But the credit has to go to the Player's/Forsythe team for the preparation they did over the winter. They moved some people around and hired some new people and the whole team is very motivated. I feel at home and that makes the job a lot easier."

Pole man Bourdais maintained his advantage at the start, but Tracy maintained the pressure and when the second yellow of the race flew on Lap 14, Paul and most of the field pitted. The Newman/Haas team said that Bourdais missed a radio call, and the French rookie duly stopped on the 17th lap, also under yellow.

Once in the lead, Tracy quickly pulled away over the out-of sequence Roberto Moreno, who in turn led Tagliani, Jourdain and Bruno Junqueira. Bourdais, meanwhile, began turning fast laps and working his way through the field.

By Lap 40, when the field again pitted after the maximum 26-lap window, Sebastien had moved all the way from 18th to 7th. But his inexperience showed when he lost control of his Lola-Ford entering the pits. Light wall contact by the right rear wheel ended the reigning F3000 champion's day.

Tracy had some drama of his own by this point. Midway through his second stint, he began to feel sick to his stomach. Then during the Lap 40 pit stop, Tracy stalled his Lola-Ford, but he didn't lose the lead thanks to the 22-second advantage he had built up over Tagliani.

For the restart, Tracy led Jourdain and Junqueira, but Bruno spun off on Lap 46 and lost six places. That allowed Fernandez and fellow Mexican Mario Dominguez to move up, followed by Darren Manning and Patrick Carpentier.

Dominguez kicked off the final round of pit stops on Lap 63, but his attempt to leapfrog the cars in front of him was thwarted when Manning punted him off the road a couple laps later. The leaders all pitted on Lap 66 of 85, and Tracy duly led Jourdain and Tagliani to the finish, winning by 2.04 seconds. Fernandez took fourth ahead of Junqueira, Roberto Moreno and Manning, who managed to knock an unhappy Jimmy Vasser off the track late in the contest.

"The key today was the tyres we had," Tracy remarked. "We had a brand-new set for every stint and I was able to conserve them in the first half of a fuel run. Then at the end I was able to do a few quick laps and maintain a gap. If I hadn't had a 20-second lead when I stalled during the second stop, I'd have come out of the pits seventh or eighth."

The Champ Car series now enjoys a two-week break prior to reconvening in Long Beach, California.