The 2007 Champ Car Season Review

With due apologies to Gary Lineker for shamelessly poaching and manipulating his famous quote about international soccer, Champ Car racing is a sector of motorsport where 17 drivers chase each other around 16 tracks, then discover there are only 14 tracks, and in the end Sebastien Bourdais always wins the title.

Yep, once Bourdais took the lead of the 2007 championship at Edmonton, the eighth of 14 rounds, there was an air of inevitability about the outcome of the title race. But there was some great racing to be done.

However, before we get to the driver reviews, let's reflect on the good and bad of 2007.

The Good Points

• The racing, with a few exceptions, was good. The new DP01's aerodynamic package allowed for cars to run closer together without losing dramatic amounts of downforce.

• Will Power gave Team Australia co-owner Derrick Walker his most successful season, in terms of wins, since Robby Gordon in 1995.

• Oriol Servia eventually got a ride.

• Most of the rookies who no-one in the US had heard of went on to prove themselves very talented.

• Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal proved worthy graduates from Atlantics.

• Tony Cotman, as executive VPO of Champ Car, earned himself a place on the FIA Circuit Commission.

• Las Vegas produced the best street circuit in Champ Car history.

• Mont Tremblant, Zolder and Assen were interesting new circuits too, with the Dutch event a major commercial success.

• Paul Tracy won a race, in typically dramatic and mildly wild PT style.

• The ever-enthusiastic Paul Stoddart was rewarded with two wins in his first season of in the series.

• The 2008 calendar was announced before the 07 season had finished. And the dates are on the verge of being confirmed by the FIA.

• Long Beach driver post-race press conference started within an hour of the chequer falling.

• Standing starts were successfully adopted from the fourth round onwards.

• The marketing department took on someone who understands marketing to a wider audience.

• Bruno Junqueira gave Dale Coyne his best season ever.

• Nigel Mansell's sons were announced as Atlantic drivers for 2008 with Walker Racing.

• Alex Tagliani's continued employment meant we often got to see his wife Bronte.

The Bad Points

• The late deletion of the Phoenix finale - in August, for chrissakes! - took what little heat remained out of the championship battle.

• The fall-out with the Phoenix promoters led to Champ Car's death in Vegas.

• The saga of trying in vain to break into Asia for the third year on the trot predictably ended with the Chinese race getting canned.

• Jerry Forsythe stopped coming to races after the third round. Not impressive for a team owner, never mind a series co-owner.

• The revolving doors on the driver line-up was frankly pathetic and had little to do with talent or results. Just ask Oriol Servia or Jan Heylen.

• Justin Wilson only scored one win. In four years, he still hasn't won as many races as former team-mate AJ Allmendinger did in just nine races with Forsythe. Hardly fair, is it?

• Champ Car's mishandling of its dispute with Robin Miller of Speed TV, who is respected by every US motorsport enthusiast (apart from NASCAR fans) appeared to piss off almost all of us in the paddock.

• The DP01's teething troubles were exacerbated by a shortage of spares at the start of the year.

• US TV ratings looked very poor for many of the events.

• Two of the series co-owners ran only one car apiece.

• This was RuSPORT's final season.

• Yours truly was the only journalist to cover every round. Again.

• Alex Tagliani's employment by Rocketsports meant we often got to see despair.

Driver by Driver

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS

NEWMAN/HAAS/LANIGAN RACING (for 14 out of 14 rounds)
1st, 364pts
Best race result: 1st (x8)
Best grid position: 1st (x6)

Right up to mid-season it looked like we had a title fight to watch. The top three in the championship were covered by four points, and Sebastien Bourdais was only third. But then he won five of the remaining seven races, wrapping up the title at the penultimate event.

It was a series of remarkable performances by the triple Champ Car champion and the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team that added up to an exceptional performance over the course of a season. This was the year where everyone started from scratch with the DP01-Cosworth, and yet Bourdais won more than half the races, his most dominant season yet.

Of course Newman/Haas/Lanigan is the best team in the series, and people like Craig Hampson (race engineer) and Pedro Campuzano (chief mechanic) know how to interpret everything Sebastien says, and so give him the equipment best suited to his requirements. But he has to go out and use it.

Ross Brawn used to be hailed as a genius tactician at Ferrari, and quite rightly so, but as he pointed out, it took Michael Schumacher's genius to open up the range of possibilities and go for the ambitious.

Well, Bourdais has done the same in Champ Car as Schumacher did in Formula 1, and the root of it - as is only right in a racing driver - is his speed.

The guy could carve a brilliant qualifying lap at a moment's notice, yet even when he didn't start from pole position, his rivals still regarded him as their strongest foe.

His ability to go as quick as anyone else while saving more fuel was rarely matched, and his stunning low-fuel laps before pitting were often the cornerstone for victory.

You knew all this already, I hear you. But it's the fact that no-one has yet equalled him in a season-long campaign that makes him stand out.

Yes there was a poor weekend (Las Vegas, where he had four accidents) and there was a race where he clearly decided just to bank points (San Jose). But otherwise he was the man everyone had to beat - and they rarely managed it.

One more thing. At Portland this year, there were complaints from many drivers about how hard it was to follow a car through the circuit's long corners as their wake took away the downforce provided by the wings - the usual slicks'n'wings complaint.

Bourdais reduced this problem considerably by slamming the car on the deck to increase underbody suction and taking off a lot of front wing. Not just fast, he's smart too. And being smart made him even faster.

I'm not going to predict great things for him in Grand Prix racing, because there are so many potential pitfalls. Too many bright flames from this series have been snuffed out by the very particular demands of Formula 1. What I do know is that as a Champ Car driver, Bourdais was a genius, and I will miss his artistry.

JUSTIN WILSON

RSPORT/RuSPORT (14/14)
2nd, 281pts
Best race result: 1st (x1)
Best grid position: 1st (x2)

The man most likely to take Bourdais' place at Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, if logic - which for once coincides with the paddock rumour-mill - is to be believed. And though he remains his usual gentlemanly self, he is desperate to prove his worth.

You see, in most people's judgement, Wilson is the one man who could have threatened Bourdais's grip on the Champ Car title over the last couple of seasons, given a consistently comparable car. And this year, as ever, he didn't have that.

The problem appeared to be grip, and the car's appetite for tyres. Portland was a fine example. From Champ Car's first-ever standing start, Wilson took off from pole position and while people queued up behind second-placed Robert Doornbos, and saved fuel, Justin built up a lead of almost 20 seconds.

Yet once Bourdais had a clear run, he homed in on the RuSPORT car at an absurd rate. It wasn't that Wilson couldn't lap at the same speed while saving as much fuel as the Newman/Haas/Lanigan machine. He simply could not match it for pace, period.

Internal strife within the team did not help. New owner Dan Pettit's misguided merger with Rocketsports Racing helped the latter, but did nothing for his own squad, either in terms of morale or performance.

In the end, Wilson's solitary victory, scored at Assen, was on a weekend when the car was not actually that good. But Justin was, and once he had leapt into the lead from second on the grid, he was going to make it very hard for Bourdais to pass. The narrowness of the track and the power-to-pass problems (which Sebastien found first) put him firmly in control thereafter.

San Jose was a far more promising event for the Briton, for he had started from pole, lost the lead to Bourdais, then grabbed it back one corner later. Then, with the field under full course caution, Seb had taken himself out of the picture by almost stalling at the hairpin.

Wilson would likely have won, therefore, had not an errant Dan Clarke run into him. But ... who's to say that the RuSPORT car wouldn't have cooked its rear tyres? It's impossible to tell.

The season finale on the Hermanos Rodriguez Autodromo, a circuit where Wilson traditionally shines might have also yielded a fairytale victory for a Champ Car team whose final day is set for next week.

Wilson felt he was quicker than Sebastien and able to save more fuel, and therefore was a contender for victory. However, a fuel feed problem rendered this a moot point.

A disappointing year for the lanky Brit therefore, and it's completely unrepresentative that he should earn runner-up slot through consistent finishes. He is a true racer, possibly the best in the series, and one can only hope he gets a car that can keep up with him in 2008.

ROBERT DOORNBOS

MINARDI TEAM USA (14/14)
3rd, 268pts
Best race result: 1st (x2),
Best grid position: 2nd (x1)

I got a bit tetchy with someone in Mexico City when they expressed surprise at Robert Doornbos' appearance in second place during Saturday's qualifying session. I too was amazed, but because it is a very hard track to learn, so for a rookie to beat Wilson, Bourdais, Tracy, etc was something special.

The gentleman I was talking to though, said: "Where did that come from? The guy's done nothing in the second half of the year". And here I had to disagree.

His results might not have shown it, but Doornbos's driving skills sure as hell didn't diminish over the course of the season. And team-mate Dan Clarke, whose qualifying pace is strong, started ahead of him just four times this year.

Doornbos's problem, in terms of perception, was that he set the bar so high in his first nine Champ Car races, with four podiums in the first five events followed by two wins in the next four. Spread out those results over the course of a season and you have a picture of a shining star rather than a comet that burnt out.

His win in the wet at Mont-Tremblant was superb, and he was error-free on a day when it was so easy to make mistakes in constantly changing track conditions.

As for the previous podiums, these were earned by listening to race engineer Michael Cannon, swiftly learning how and when to fuel save and when to unleash his pace.

Some scoffed at the idea that a man who raced in Formula 1 could be considered a rookie, and certainly his maturity and nous gave him a leg up on Champ Car's other 2007 freshmen.

But keeping his head while those around him screwed up also frequently elevated him ahead of others with more experience in the series.

Twice he let himself down - at Toronto where he impaled Bourdais, and Road America where he clipped Clarke who had just overtaken him. Other than that, I don't think Doornbos could have done much more to impress. When he was off the pace, it was generally because the car was (as in the European rounds).

The one exception to this was at Surfers Paradise, where he took a while to build up his confidence on this notoriously tricky street course. But here again came the wisdom of a racer in his late 20s: he took his time to learn it, didn't go balls-out and then crash. And on race day he calmly drove to fourth.

If there was a question mark over Doornbos, it was to do with his qualifying pace - he only started one race from the front row. But, F1 experience notwithstanding, he was a rookie and new to almost all the tracks. Where he had tested beforehand - Portland, Mont-Tremblant and Elkhart Lake he qualified second, fifth and third respectively.

That, and his outstanding lap in Mexico City, suggests Doornbos should be an even stronger championship contender in 2008.

WILL POWER

TEAM AUSTRALIA (14/14)
4th, 262pts
Best race result: 1st (x2)
Best grid position: 1st (x5)

Without wishing to crow, I predicted that this man had the potential to step into the breach left by AJ Allmendinger's departure. But even I didn't expect him to go out and win from pole position in the season's opening round.

In fact, in terms of qualifying pace, Will Power is probably the best in the series. His self confidence has to be strong, because all year he never had a back-up car, yet he racked up five pole positions.

There was a tendency for Team Australia to take longer to find their ultimate pace on a given weekend than Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing though, and one wonders if that is a deficiency on Power's part, not through lack of technical ability, but because this was only his second year in the series.

The net result of this slow build-up to speed was that Power felt he gave away cheap points on Fridays, and that his team also put extra pressure on themselves to come up with the goods on Saturday. Meanwhile, of course, Friday's fastest - more often than not, Bourdais - had guaranteed himself a front-row start.

However, the real points giveaways were in Houston, when he threw away a potential podium finish with a hopeless passing attempt on Justin Wilson, Cleveland when a broken valve-stem caused his tyre to deflate when he looked set to win, Edmonton when second place was stolen off him by a steering-rack failure, and Road America, where he lost a probable fourth place when his car locked in fourth gear.

Oh, and there was Surfers Paradise too. He seemed unbeatable there but the team waved him out of his pitbox into the path of David Martinez's car, and the collision delayed him and screwed up his suspension.

He might still have finished on the podium, even from the back of the field, had the pressure not then caused him to have a mental wobble and hurl himself into Katherine Legge's car.

But considering team co-owner Derrick Walker was not expecting to challenge for the championship until 2008, it looks like Power and Team Australia are right on schedule, and 2007 has to be considered a good year. Power's wins in both Las Vegas and in the wet at Toronto were perfect: expect many similar performances in 2008.

GRAHAM RAHAL

NEWMAN/HAAS/LANIGAN RACING (14/14)
5th, 243pts
Best race result: 2nd
Best grid position: 4th

It was inevitable in Sebastien Bourdais's greatest year in Champ Car that his team-mate - an 18-year-old rookie - would be overshadowed.

But being talented, mentally astute and driving for the best team, it was inevitable too that Graham Rahal would take major strides over the course of the season. And four podium finishes indicates just that.

Though he appeared to over-drive in his attempts to keep up with Bourdais in the first half of the year, these instances gradually decreased as did his errors, and he became a formidable driver, as he demonstrated in the season finale.

Stepping out from Bourdais' shadow will be a relief for Rahal. One day he may reach that same level of performance, and having the pressure of comparison lifted off his young shoulders should bring that day closer. Expect wins next season.

ORIOL SERVIA

FORSYTHE CHAMPIONSHIP RACING (11/14)
6th, 237pts
PKV RACING (2/14)
Best race result: 2nd
Best grid position: 2nd

He didn't even have a drive at the start of the season, but in his first race (the second round at Long Beach) Oriol Servia hammered home how ludicrous a situation that was. Subbing for Paul Tracy who injured himself in practice, the Catalan drove the Forsythe Championship Racing car from near the back of the grid to finish second.

When Tracy recovered and returned, it was Mario Dominguez who was given the boot, Servia who was retained, and through the summer he struggled manfully through Forsythe's crisis, out-qualifying his more prestigious team-mate six times, as he tended to make fewer mistakes when hustling a recalcitrant car over a flying lap.

But when Champ Car remembered it needed a Mexican driver or two in the season finale, Jerry Forsythe surprisingly opted to dump Servia for David Martinez, rather than enter a third car.

Thankfully, PKV Racing had a vacancy following Tristan Gommendy's early departure for financial reasons, and Servia was able to qualify second in Surfers Paradise before throwing away a strong race with an error. Then, following a stall on the grid, he was able to rocket through the field in the Mexican finale.

It is odd that from such unpromising circumstances, Servia had one of his most convincing seasons. I hope a Spanish race on the schedule in 2008 means he will get a good drive - and a bit more respect from team owners as a bonus. He deserves both.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA

DALE COYNE RACING (14/14)
7th, 233pts
Best race result: 2nd
Best grid position: 4th

The fairy-tale of the series in 2007 was Bruno Junqueira bringing Dale Coyne Racing three podium finishes on the trot.

His pace was apparent from his first test of the DP01 in Sebring, and Coyne became determined to do everything in his power to retain him. Junqueira, with few (if any) other choices, grabbed the opportunity.

As predicted, there was a compression between the have and the have-not teams in the series thanks to the new car, and Junqueira's latent skill was enough to do the rest. Since when have DCR team members been disappointed to qualify outside the top eight? And yet that was the case this year.

Junqueira, with the responsibility of leading the team, and with a team's primary focus being on him, could scarcely have done a better job. The jumped start at Road America and a few spins in practice in Mexico could not detract from a great year for the Brazilian veteran.

SIMON PAGENAUD

TEAM AUSTRALIA (14/14)
8th, 232pts
Best race result: 4th
Best grid position: 2nd

Five times he outqualified a team-mate as scorchingly fast as Will Power, yet somehow Simon Pagenaud never made it onto the podium.

In qualifying the Team Australia rookie was way better than some of us expected, yet in the races he often looked like a rookie - wary of doing anything for fear of doing the wrong thing.

Like fellow '06 Atlantic graduate Graham Rahal, Pagenaud isn't used to the idea of fuel-saving, but sometimes you wished he'd just go for it.

Before I give the impression that Pagenaud is Champ Car's equivalent of Giancarlo Fisichella, it's worth pointing out that, like Power, he was working in the knowledge that Team Australia had no back-up car. Thus his frequently superb qualifying performances were even more impressive.

But extra aggression in starts, restarts and wheel-to-wheel situations wouldn't go amiss. Otherwise, I think he's superb and I hope Team Australia find it within their bank accounts to retain him for 2008.

NEEL JANI

PKV RACING (14/14)
9th, 231pts
Best race result: 2nd
Best grid position: 4th

One of a whole host of talented rookies in the series in 2007, Neel Jani initially struggled to adapt his GP2/F1-honed style to wring the best performance out of a Champ Car. He tended not to use kerbs hard enough, and he was too abrupt on the steering, expecting instant turn-in.

He also had problems getting decent fuel mileage, a (sad) requirement for any Champ Car driver in this era. Or rather, he could achieve it, but not while going quickly. Like Pagenaud, Jani also seemed to lose out in wheel-to-wheel situations.

But there was clear promise there. Until qualifying proper, he was the best of the rookies at learning the Surfers Paradise circuit, and at circuits as diverse as Houston and Edmonton he qualified in the top five. And at Assen, he might have finished second had his car not been stabbed by an errant marker cone-support.

Instead, his high point was Toronto when his delicacy in the wet saw him get the better of such as Bourdais and Wilson so that he finished runner-up to Power.

With a year's experience behind him, he could win races next season.

ALEX TAGLIANI

RSPORTS / ROCKETSPORTS RACING (14/14)
10th, 205pts
Best race result: 4th
Best grid position: 4th

For Alex Tagliani, this was dreadful season in terms of both results and relationships. Most onlookers thought he was wrong to go back to Rocketsports Racing, and I'm sorry to say he came to agree with us long before year's end.

The shame of it is that it started promisingly for Tag. The formation of RSPORTS did nothing for the RuSPORT half of the deal, but Rocketsports undoubtedly benefited in terms of equipment and knowledge. Alex's race engineer, Chris Lerch, had worked with AJ Allmendinger and Cristiano da Matta at RuSPORT.

The Canadian veteran responded with an excellent drive in Las Vegas, and if he hadn't driven so damn slowly once he got into second at Long Beach, he might well have beaten Servia to runner-up spot there. For both events he outqualified Justin Wilson.

Even after Wilson re-established himself as the team's pacesetter, Tagliani stayed impressively close on many occasions, and in Road America even outqualified him again. But apart from San Jose, where he might have won if he hadn't coughed out of fuel on-track, Tag rarely looked like a potential podium finisher.

By the time he had his race ruined by a ridiculous strategy change in Zolder, Alex had reached the end of his tether with team-owner Paul Gentilozzi who he said owed him a lot of money - some of it from 2004.

So Gentilozzi looked into replacing him for the final two races of the season, but was persuaded by Tag's manager that legally this might be a bad idea. As things transpired, it would have been an excellent idea, when you saw the piece of junk Alex was given to drive in Mexico.

PAUL TRACY

FORSYTHE CHAMPIONSHIP RACING (12/14)
11th, 171pts
Best race result: 1st (x1)
Best grid position: 2nd

Michael Cannon, inexplicably released by Forsythe at the end of 2006 (as AJ Allmendinger's race engineer he had, after all, only won five of nine races) observed in Mont-Tremblant: "Just seeing Paul's car going down the pitlane, I could see he was going to have a bad day. What they're missing is that obvious."

He wouldn't reveal what that issue was, of course. It took Tom Brown, who arrived from PKV just before Zolder, to point out the car was running nose-up, tail down, in the fashion of the Lola B2K. Given the DP01's natural tendency to understeer, due to its stronger underbody downforce, the car needed to be running nose-down.

I would never have believed such a good team could get so lost as Forsythe did in 2007. But they did, and it has been chronicled for Autosport.com through the season by Paul Tracy himself.

However, all I can add is that his performances in Vegas, Cleveland, Surfers Paradise and Mexico have done much to convince the Champ Car community that Tracy is still a strong force, a potential winner.

So long as Brown, Eric Zeto and Brandon Fry aren't cut loose over the winter, there is every indication that Tracy and the Forsythe crew can become a championship threat once more.

TRISTAN GOMMENDY

PKV RACING (11/14)
12th, 140pts
Best race result: 4th
Best grid position: 1st (x1)

"Who the hell is Christian Comedy?" someone asked me in pre-season testing. But after I explained Tristan's French F3 and Macau-winning credentials he still looked unimpressed.

Well I hope he was watching at Mont-Tremblant when the rookie stuck the car on pole in only his sixth Champ Car race. His monstering of the car over the first chicane had to be seen to be believed.

In fact, bravery marked Gommendy out all year. It wasn't always elegant, sometimes it wasn't effective either, but there were days - especially in the first half of the season - when he made PKV Racing team-mate Neel Jani look limp and overrated.

Sadly he never got a podium before his past financial troubles finally caught up with him and he missed the final two races. I would have paid to watch him through Surfers' Paradise's amazing VB chicane. Let's hope there's another chance in 2008 ...

DAN CLARKE

MINARDI TEAM USA (13/14)
13th, 129pts
Best race result: 2nd
Best grid position: 3rd

I owe this man an apology. Having reported that Dan Clarke was the cause of Katherine Legge's crash at San Jose, I later discovered the tyre of his compatriot's Dale Coyne car that he struck in his all-or-nothing pass on team-mate Doornbos did not in fact deflate.

Apart from that, I stand by everything I've said about Clarke: that he's fast, but that the wildness too often means he does not fulfil his potential.

Unfortunately, he did not get any test time in the DP01 before the season started, which meant he was on the back foot from the off. When you're being compared to a team-mate as immediately successful as Doornbos, that ramps up the pressure.

Their mutual distaste hardly helped matters, but it took until Road America for them to actually run into each other, and on that occasion it was Robert's fault. Clarke drove beautifully on race day at the track where he took pole last year, and he thoroughly deserved his second place, splitting the Newman/Haas/Lanigan cars.

Sadly the events either side of that overshadowed such a superb showing. After qualifying a superb third in San Jose, he ran into the back of Wilson during a yellow-flag period. And in Zolder he was banned for a race after causing a four-car wreck on the opening lap of practice.

If Clarke could convert his out-of-cockpit insouciance into in-cockpit discipline he could win races. It's up to him.

RYAN DALZIEL

PACIFIC COAST MOTORSPORTS (11/14)
14th, 116pts
Best race result: 7th
Best grid position: 8th

Inevitably it was a very tough season year for a rookie, surrounded by team personnel who were also new to the Champ Car series. But the peaks of performance were high enough to prove that Ryan Dalziel is a potential race-winner.

He should have got fourth in the rain in Toronto but tangled with Wilson, and he started a superb eighth (ahead of Tagliani and both Minardis) in Edmonton, but then spun.

His replacement by Mario Dominguez (who had subbed for him at San Jose after Dalziel cracked a collarbone falling off a bike) for the last two races came as a shock.

But Pacific Coast Motorsports were working on a Mexican sponsorship deal and had also realised that having an experienced driver could start to flatten their own learning curve.

They also felt that Dalziel and team-mate Alex Figge were too close as friends to really push each other on the development of the cars. However, they certainly didn't call into question Dalziel's ability - and nor should anyone else.

KATHERINE LEGGE

DALE COYNE RACING (14/14)
15th, 108pts
Best race result: 6th
Best grid position: 13th

Katherine's best qualifying result and best finish came in the opening round in Las Vegas. Thereafter her performances descended into mediocrity, and whether this was down to the car or driver inevitably depended on who you talked to.

She rapidly lost faith in her engineer, and whether she was right to or not, steps should have been taken sooner to quell the atmosphere of negativity that surrounded her. (Adam Schaeckter switched from Bruno's car to hers from Zolder onwards).

She is an emotional lady, and needs to feel everything is right before she gives her best. So whenever she felt there was a fundamental handling flaw in the car (as at Cleveland or Road America) she was light years from team-mate Junqueira's pace.

The inevitable conclusion is that both car No. 11 and Katherine herself are each better than their results showed in 2007. Whether they will be reunited in 2008 remains open to question.

JAN HEYLEN

CONQUEST RACING (9/14)
16th, 104pts
Best race result: 2nd
Best grid position: 7th

Jan Heylen, who last year raced for Dale Coyne Racing, replaced Matt Halliday at Conquest Racing for the fourth round, and quickly took the team's competitiveness up another notch. However, he and team-owner Eric Bachelart must have sometimes wondered which black cat they kicked as it crossed their path.

At Cleveland, Jan was speared in the side by Gommendy's out-of-control PKV car at Toronto - after qualifying eighth - he did well to avoid the first lap carnage ... only for Gommendy to arrive on the scene with a new angle of attack, launching himself off the back of the Conquest car.

In San Jose it was Doornbos who ran into the back of Heylen on the opening lap, though Heylen did recover to finish ninth. He went to his home race Zolder on a high, having qualified ninth and finished sixth at Road America (which happened to be Chris Mower's first race back as team manager).

But then Clarke wiped Heylen out on the opening day of practice, and he had to race a car that was missing seventh gear.

Then it all came good again at Assen, where he qualified seventh and finished second after pulling off some fine passes. And then ... he was let go for financial reasons as the funding from the Belgian race promoter failed to come through.

It was/is a sad situation for Heylen, Bachelart and Champ Car, but presumably Jan will return, given that there is a race in Zolder again next year.

ALEX FIGGE

PACIFIC COAST MOTORSPORTS (13/14)
17th, 95pts
Best race result: 8th
Best grid position: 13th

Alex is very much a 'confidence' driver who cannot just leap in a Champ Car and go quickly. He needs to build up to it, and that's a hard task to do when, as in Pacific Coast Motorsports' case, your pre-season testing has been bugged by more problems than the rest of the field combined.

He's honest enough to agree there were times this year when he seemed overwhelmed by the whole experience of racing Champ Cars, and there were many spins in practice sessions and races. But there were also times when he was dreadfully unlucky, like when the car failed as he started the Cleveland race from 13th on the grid.

What he needs is an experienced team-mate (he will hopefully have that in '08), experience of the tracks (he now has that) and lots more seat time in the next off-season.

The Rest

Mario Dominguez - Mario Dominguez whored himself around between four teams this year. "Actually, I don't think 'whore' is the right word, old boy," he said in his excellent Oxford English. "I'm not even doing it for the money!"

He started the season for Forsythe Championship Racing, taking sixth in Houston, but was replaced by Oriol Servia from Portland.

He then subbed last-minute for an injured Gommendy at PKV in Edmonton, for Pacific Coast Motorsports in place of Dalziel at San Jose, in place of the banned Clarke at Minardi in Zolder, before returning to PCM for the final two races.

All good fun, but he would have a much better chance if he had a full contract with a team next year ...

Matt Halliday - Despite looking very strong in the pre-season test at Laguna Seca, Matt's Conquest Racing entry got involved in too many incidents to make him indispensable when he ran out of funds after three races.

Roberto Moreno - Subbed for Figge at Houston when Alex had a nasty-looking shunt at Long Beach. But he looked well past his prime.

David Martinez - Will somebody give this kid a full-time drive please? Don't patronise him by slinging him in the car in time for the Mexico City race. Just give him a contract and watch him improve.

He wasn't far off Paul Tracy's pace in Mexico, he didn't crash at Surfers Paradise despite that being his first race weekend with a DP01. What more has he got to do?

Nelson Philippe - After doing hardly any race car driving all year, it was unsurprising that Nelson struggled to get the best out of the DP01 on his return to Champ Cars, replacing Heylen at Conquest. But he finished sixth in Surfers Paradise, and did a competent job in Mexico.

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