Race: And it's still Gil

(For race results, click here.)

(For championship standings, click here.)

De Ferran was utterly dominant at Houston in taking his second straight Champ Car race win. He paced practice, took pole position, and never looked threatened in winning by 3.43 seconds over Dario Franchitti. Memo Gidley was a distant third after driving a forceful race from a poor grid position, heading Japanese rookie Tora Takagi, who earned a CART areer-best with fourth place.

The race was clean for the first 40 laps before a series of full course yellows led to the usual fuel strategy games and jumbled the field. By the time most of the field pitted on Lap 41, de Ferran had nearly nine seconds in hand over Bruno Junqueira, while Kenny Brack had faded with handling problems to a distant fifth, some 35 seconds behind the leader.

De Ferran, Franchitti, Mauricio Gugelmin and Tora Takagi committed to a standard two-stop strategy when the rest of the field short-pitted after another yellow on Lap 52. Running full rich, de Ferran and Vasser pulled away from the field, putting 20 seconds on Gugelmin and 35 seconds on fifth-placed Jimmy Vasser by Lap 75.

Franchitti made his final stop on Lap 77, then Gugelmin dropped out with a broken gearbox a lap later after driving his best race of the year. When Michael Andretti spun a couple laps later, bringing out the final full course yellow, de Ferran was able to get in and out of the pits with the lead over Alex Tagliani.

After the Lap 85 restart, Franchitti set off after Tagliani while de Ferran again waltzed away in the lead. Dario kept the Canadian under heavy pressure until he finally slid to the outside and clouted the Turn 4 wall on the 94th lap. Tagliani was able to drive the car around to the pits, so there was no full course yellow, and that left de Ferran with a 5.1-second lead over Franchitti.

"The team did a great job ­ the car was fantastic since Friday," remarked de Ferran. "The yellow at the end gave us a little cushion, but today was very smooth for us.

"When Dario was right behind us, the pace was very hard," he added. "I was driving 10/10 just to stay ahead of him. But this is a great day for us, and certainly it puts us in good position for the championship."

Franchitti was pleased with the way his weekend came around after a sluggish start on Friday.

"The car was good," Dario said. "Gil and I were able to run flat out and really push each other and that was great. I must say that finishing on the podium is a bit unexpected after the way our weekend started, but that says a lot about incredible effort that the Team Kool Green guys have put in."

De Ferran takes a 10-point lead to next weekend's Champ Car round at Laguna Seca, where he finished second in a Penske one-two to Helio Castroneves last year. Castroneves finished fifth at Houston, moving him ahead of Andretti into third in the championship standings, albeit 30 points behind his team mate.

"We're still in it," Castroneves said. "We want to repeat our 1-2 at Laguna Seca and there are a lot of points left out there."