Paul Position

Weird, isn't it, how when we've had two races on back-to-back weekends, my next Paul Position has had to cover both of them, but still I've sat here wondering whether I'd have enough to say to fill the space. I mean, I'm running out of ways to tell you how I struggled on red tyres, went well on black tyres, and then saw my weekend flushed down the toilet.

And yet now, I've just had a pretty good race but ended up with only a sixth place... but I've got loads to talk about. I guess if you saw the race coverage from Denver - and if you haven't, I'd strongly recommend you watch a repeat or get a copy - you'll have a reasonable idea why this time around, I've got a lot to say.

First of all, I'm proud to say that in Denver, I kept my new commitment to left-foot braking. I did it all weekend, and was pretty happy with how it went. As we talked about in the last column, the medium-speed corners are the tricky ones, where you're braking quite hard but not slamming them the pedal to the floor. Sensitivity is the key. As a result, I had a couple of small spins in practice, but when it was all going right, it was definitely faster for me in Denver. On race day, when I had to make a lot of passing manoeuvres and brake off the racing line, it was a definite advantage.

I left myself with a bit of work to do on Saturday, because in Friday qualifying I spun and missed the rest of the session before I'd set a flying lap. I went into Turn 5 a little too deep on the brakes, had a bit of a lock-up going in, missed the entry by about a foot and a half, went on to opposite lock trying to hold on to it and just ran out of real estate. It's very, very easy to do on that corner, and it's so slippery off line that once the rear of the car's gone, your chances of catching it are pretty remote.

On Saturday, I was the quickest on black tyres again, but I ended up qualifying fourth because those real soft reds didn't suit me. I know, I know, you've heard that before; the difference was that this time they didn't suit anyone, really. Except Sebastien. He was very quick on reds over four or five laps, which suited him for qualifying of course, but like the rest of them, he paid dearly for it on his red stint on race-day.

Things started to come round for us in Sunday morning warm-up. We had gone quick on the blacks, but then we made a small set-up change - not one I can tell you about, for obvious reasons - and did a race simulation. We put on a set of reds, filled up with about two-thirds of a fuel load, and I was only a tenth off of my qualifying time, and about seven tenths quicker than Bourdais. Pretty good, huh? We had just hit the race set-up sweet spot.

In fact, comparing my red stint to his during the race, I'd have to conclude our car was actually a lot better than his by Sunday. My stint on red tyres was the first one, and I went to the back of the field, and had to come through, outbrake people and generally drive like a madman.

Why? Well because at the first turn after the green, I got spun around by my old friend Alex Tagliani. It was a genuine mistake on his part: he came in a little too hot and also on the kerbs, so his left front hit my right-rear and spun me round. It was only a small misjudgement but it had big consequences for him (he bust his suspension) and me (he spun me to the back of the pack). We all screw up sometimes, and fine, he admitted it afterwards.

If Alex hadn't hit me so I'd have been running fourth, I'm not sure what our tactics would have been. Go to the front as soon as possible? Hang back to conserve fuel? Hard one to call.

Whatever, we were now at the back, so I dived into the pits for a fuel top-up, flew round to join the back of the pack, and then we just had to go like mad. And I soon discovered I was able to pass in unconventional spots.

My main one was on the short front straightaway past the pits, where I had real good power-down [traction] out of the previous corner. It was pretty hard to pass people on the long back straight, because it's a pretty fast sweeper that leads on to it, where you're relying on a fair bit of aerodynamics, and the car slides on that corner anyway. So you can't follow another car too closely.

Even though we did that neat set-up change in warm-up, I was surprised that I had it so much better than the rest on reds. Everyone else was pissing and moaning about them being too soft, and you'd think because of the way I'd had to drive the first 20 laps that my reds would have been more screwed than anyone else's - especially because every time we were passing someone, I was obviously having to drive off line so we were picking up all the crap at the side of the track. What gave us such a pace advantage? I don't know, and I guess it's just one of racing's little mysteries.

Anyway, by the time I got through into the top five, I was expecting the top guys to have checked out for the day, and that they'd be 20 seconds up the road. But I got there and thought, 'Shit, that's Justin and AJ up ahead'. A nice surprise. If only I could have taken advantage of it... No question, I could have got that first set of reds to last until lap 25 or 26, which was pretty good on the day.

However, I wasn't able to use the five laps of extra fuel that I had taken on in that first splash'n'dash because we had a fuel pick up problem. That became very obvious when I got to the pit entrance and I thought we'd run out of gas because the engine tried to die on me. Major bummer, because I reckon we'd probably have been ahead of everybody when we came out of the pits.

Instead, we came out in fourth, behind Justin Wilson. Now, as we saw at Long Beach, Houston and as I saw first-hand at Toronto, his RuSPORT team have had major power-down issues on street courses: their rear end just goes away and so they end up crucifying their rear tyres.

So from where I was sitting, I could see he was losing grip, spinning the tyres, sliding the back out, and was being pretty aggressive. I tried once to pass him, and used up my last few seconds of power-to-pass, but I wasn't far enough alongside to make it stick. Then he pushed even harder, and then, as we were coming up to lap a backmarker, he used his power-to-pass boost (he still had loads left) to try and gap me, but his traction was just disappearing, and so I closed him down in just a lap and was able to draft him down the front straightaway.

That put me behind AJ, and after he put his pass on Sebastien Bourdais, I tried the same thing about five laps later, past the start-finish line. But I wasn't in there far enough, and Sebastien was able to shut the door on me, and I had to lock up and run wide to avoid hitting him. That let Justin back through. So I had to start all over again.

Paul Tracy (Forsythe Championship Racing) © LAT

Then Justin passed Sebastien, whose handling looked shot to pieces, and the next lap I did too, but then I was still stuck behind Justin again and now with no extra boost left. Without the fuel pick-up issue, I could have stayed out longer than him on that second stint and jumped past him that way, but because of our problem, we had to pit about three laps before him, so I came out behind, and again had to overtake him. Eventually we did it but by then AJ was about 12 seconds up the road.

If I'd had the boost left to follow AJ past Sebastien in the second stint, I think I could have challenged AJ for the victory, (although obviously I wouldn't have been able to hold him off with my pick-up problem). But this late in the season, and with AJ in the lead and going for the title, I don't know if the team would have allowed me to challenge him for the win.

Sure, if I was clearly a lot faster than him, and there wasn't going to be a risk in passing, I don't think they'd have had an issue with it. But I wouldn't take a big risk against my teammate. Once he was out in front, he was pretty quick, and I'm well aware of my position right now, which is to try and help him win the championship.

Before I get to the final scene of the drama, I guess I better explain that the problem with the fuel pick-up was down to a manufacturer flaw. The inside of the fuel cell was delaminating, and a piece of that material fell down and over one of the fuel pick-up outlets, blocking it off, so when I went through right-handers, we were starving the engine of fuel. It's the sort of bizarre occurrence that I don't mind if I'm leading the series by 50 points, but could really do without right now.

Okay, so it's the closing laps, I'm running second, out of the running for the lead, and Bourdais is charging up because everything's peachy again for him on black tyres, and we're starting to choke up with five laps to go with this fuel cell issue.

The Forsythe team had come on the radio and said: "We're not even sure we're going to make it to the end of the race with the engine like this. So do you want to pit? If we fill it enough that we know you won't have a pick-up problem, you're probably going to come out in sixth or seventh."

I said, "Nah, fuck it, I'm staying out, and if it stops, it stops." I'd never give up a possible second place just to finish a definite sixth, or whatever.

Anyway, just like they told me, with five laps to go, I started running out of fuel in the right hand corners. It was worst in the infield section, in turns 1 and 2, and then I'd have a big cut-out in Turn 6, after the pits. And then on the last two laps, even that gentle right curve on the back straightaway was making it cough.

Going into the last lap, I had enough of a gap on Bourdais and I got on to the back straight pretty well and he was fairly far back from me, but he had the push-to-pass. And then my engine had this big hiccup that went on for about a second, so suddenly Bourdais is on me pretty hard.

Coming down to Turn 9, I said to myself, "There is no fucking way I'm giving up this position. Absolutely not. I'm on the inside line, we're going down to this corner and I'm not braking till after he brakes." It didn't work, but I had to try, and the probation didn't cross my mind.

Paul Tracy and Sebastien Bourdais discuss their tangle © LAT

I did a whole load of interviews with newspapers and people from Canada last week and so on, and they've been asking me the same goddamn thing about me for the last 16 years - "Why don't you just change the way you drive?" And I say, "Well, it's just in my DNA. It's the way I drive, it's the way I am, the way my dad is - he's Irish, so I have Irish blood in me. I'm a fighter."

Whatever Sebastien or anyone else wants to believe, it wasn't personal. I'd have gone for that manoeuvre on anyone, except probably my teammate. And that's only because he's in the chase for the title. In the past I have gone for that move on my teammate!

Okay, let's set the record straight here: do I not like Sebastien? Yeah, I don't like him. But I don't have to like him. He doesn't like me either, and he doesn't have to like me. Shit, that's just life. He shouldn't feel singled out. I've pulled that manoeuvre on Dario [Franchitti, Team Green teammate] before now, and I like Dario!

I guess Sebastien's complaint now is that the punishment - a fine, losing three points and a one-race extension to my probation - is a joke. I talked with Tony Cotman [Champ Car VP of Operations] the day after the race and I asked him what he thinks. He said: "Well, if you weren't on probation, I'd call it a racing incident. I didn't see anything wrong with the move, it was the last corner, last lap, and that sort of thing happens every weekend, and in every racing series out there. If you weren't on probation, I wouldn't do anything about it."

But I am on probation, so Cotman's come up with a deletion of three points, a fairly minimal penalty, which I think sums up his feelings on it: that it was 90 per cent a racing incident, but because I was on probation, he had to do something.

Wish he had done something about Sebastien's behaviour out of the car. (In case you didn't see it, Bourdais ran across the track while the race was still going and started yelling, and pushed me).

I think it's pretty clear that he should have been sanctioned, because Cotman himself set a precedent only a fortnight earlier by fining Alex for initiating physical contact with me. What the hell's the difference? I mean, even on a basic level, you cannot go around in the US aggressively putting your hands on anyone - if you do that out on the street, you'll get sued or jailed for it. There has to be consequences for your actions.

I told Tony, "I've been racing in this series for 16 years, and never once have I gotten into an altercation with somebody and been the first one to make physical contact". I've had three arguments where it's got physical - one with Barry Green, second with Tag a couple of weeks back, and now this one. And every time the other guy has made the contact first. Well, if Sebastien wants to tango with me some more in the next races, he's gonna have to expect some pretty sore toes.

Unlike after Cleveland, when he didn't return my call, I won't bother talking to him this time. I'm fairly confident that he's gonna get to Montreal, a French-speaking town where he's pretty well liked, and he's gonna have a field day with the media and I expect that from him. The French-speaking Canadian press are kinda mad at me at the moment, because after the race I pointed out that the French ice-hockey players like to fight with their helmets on too.

Sebastien Bourdais and Paul Tracy © LAT

So we still haven't won this year. Haven't won since Cleveland last year. But you know, I've had years like this in the past, and it doesn't increase the pressure at all. In 1996, with Penske I won nothing, then came back the next year and took three victories. Then in '98, my first year with Team Green, I had another bad year - pretty similar to what's going on now - cautions for aggressive driving, penalties, people mad at me, and so on - then came back and won twice the following year.

So history's repeating itself; these things always go in cycles. I know the speed is there, the commitment's there and I've changed my driving style this year, which I know for a lot of people is very difficult to do. And I'm feeling that commitment back from the team too. To give you an example, I get a good bonus for winning a race, and Jerry [Forsythe] has paid that to me in full as reward for how I drove in Denver.

I suppose I should get pole in Montreal, as I understand Sebastien's now just one behind me in the stat books. I've never been a particularly good qualifier, but turning out my best times lap after lap on race day has been my strength. Until my championship year in 2003, the year when they started evening up the way the cars and drivers were weighed, I hadn't scored a road-course pole since 1994! Whereas Sebastien is a great qualifier, there's no doubt about it.

But I'm looking forward to the Montreal race, because I think my left-foot braking's really gonna help me. Not doing that has caused me to struggle for pace there in the past; you've got big, long braking zones there anyway, and so the transition time from throttle to brake has cost me more time. Previously, I've had lock-ups where I've been braking with the right while trying to do throttle blips, which gives you uneven pressure on the brake pedal.

You may have noticed, I always like these pieces to review the last race, and then preview the next, so I should kinda leave it there. But I can't resist pointing out this one last thing about the last event. Now I might not be the smartest guy in the world, but I realised long ago that I'm the sort of driver who gets fines over the course of the year, so now I get it written into my contract that the team picks up the tab for any fines I get during the season...

So I have to conclude that the Grand Prix of Denver was a great event for me. I lost just three points in a shitty season where my points mean nothing anyway. Whereas on the plus side, I've just been given a sizeable bonus and I got to piss off the guy I hate. Cool.

PT