Officials punish stars

Tracy and Junqueira have both been censured for publicly criticising race officials and fined US$10,000. Perhaps more significantly however both have also had 10 championship points held in abeyance for the remainder of the season to ensure they remain well behaved. This effectively leaves both drivers under probation.

Tracy, who suggested that Champ Car's chief steward Chris Kneifel and starter J.D. Wilbur should be fired after he was held up for several laps by backmarkers during the race, was fined an additional US$5,000 for flipping the bird to flag officials he deemed were not using the blue flags enough.

"The flagman was showing blue flags very rarely and when he did show them, it was with no authority," Tracy said after the race. "I spent 12 laps stuck behind Tagliani.

"We keep talking over and over in the drivers meetings about guys obeying the blue flags, but if they don't even show them, it's not on the driver. It's really down to the officiating."

Junqueira was incensed after his fastest qualifying lap was stripped from him after Champ Car officials deemed him to be guilty of blocking.

Tagliani has been stripped of two points, effective immediately, for failure to follow the instructions of race officials. The Rocketsports driver held Tracy up for several laps while the Forsythe driver was running third and trying to catch race winner Sebastien Bourdais and Newman/Haas team-mate Junqueira.