Tracy dominates Long Beach

A gamble on pit strategy and some typically aggressive driving propelled Tracy to victory. He used push-to-pass to come from the second row of the grid around Newman/Haas team-mates Junqueira and Bourdais on the race to the first corner, but it was Forsythe Racing's bold pit stop strategy - repeatedly running Tracy to the very end of his fuel allotment before pitting - ultimately won the race.

"When the green flag waved, I used the push to pass button at the start/finish line to pick up more speed," said Tracy. "Then I took advantage of Bruno's draft and charged to the inside. I waited for Bruno to brake so that I could make my move around him. He ended up braking earlier than I anticipated and my car started to slide. I slid into Turn 1 and away we went."

In contrast to recent years, there were no mandatory pit windows in this first race of the new Champ Car. Rather, drivers had to make at least two pit stops under green flag conditions during the race. So teams faced two very different strategies: play it safe and pit well before the fuel load was exhausted, or run to the very end of the fuel load, thus gaining precious time running on progressively lighter fuel loads.

This meant gambling that a full-course yellow would not occur a lap or two before their scheduled stops, forcing them to pack up behind the pace car, then falling to the end of the field behind the early stoppers when they pitted under green.

"My strategy all along has been to be on the aggressive side and take our chances," added Tracy. "History has shown the yellows happen here after pit stops when cars are on cold tyres and full fuel loads. It was our strategy to take our chances and go to the maximum."

On the other hand, Newman/Haas Racing played it conservative. Junqueira decided discretion was the better part of valour in ceding the first corner to Tracy; Bourdais took an equally cautious tack when Alex Tagliani pulled a similarly bold move into Turn 1 as well.

Subsequently, Junqueira and Bourdais regularly pitted well before the end of the fuel stints, ensuring they would not get hosed by an untimely full-course yellow; but repeatedly putting themselves behind the eight ball in their efforts to catch the flying Tracy.

"With the new rules we took the strategy to stop early with a lot of fuel and play it safe," said Junqueria. "Tracy would open up a big gap, then I'd close, then we'd stop early. Then Tracy would open up a big gap, then I'd close, then we'd stop early. Then at the end there was a lot of traffic and there were no blue flags and I settled for second."

Bourdais said: "Everybody needs to understand we chose the safe strategy and didn't run as far as we could have between pit stops. If the yellow had come out between the time we pitted and Paul was scheduled to pit, Paul's race would have been over. The strategy didn't work today, but it might work another day."

Although he fell as far down the order as fifth at one stage, Bourdais worked his way around Mario Dominguez for fourth, took third when Tagliani endured a lengthy pit stop as the result of a recalcitrant wheel nut and was on Junqueira's gearbox at the checkered flag.

Patrick Carpentier came home fourth after getting around Dominguez on the final pit stop exchange, while Justin Wilson drove a relatively lonely race to take sixth, holding off the advances of Ryan Hunter-Reay in the closing laps.