The 2007 season of the Champ Car World Series ends this weekend with the Champ car Gran Premo at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Multitime Champ Car Series champion Sebastien Bourdais will be among the top contenders in Mexico City along with exciting rookies Will Power and Graham Rahal. Veteran play-by-play announcer Rick Benjamin, color analyst and former Atlantic racer Jon Beekhuis will be in the booth for the race with Bill Stephens, Cameron Steele and Michelle Beisner reporting from the pits.
While Bourdais is close to finishing his Champ Car career, Medi | Zone driver Graham Rahal is still just beginning his. The 18-year-old has one more event in his rookie season and one more opportunity to meet a goal he set—to win a race this year. In 13 races this season, he has finished on the podium four times including becoming the youngest podium finisher with his second place in Houston. In 10 of the 13 races, he has been in contention for the win by running in the top-five, including leading three races and setting the fastest lap of the race for the first time in the previous event in Australia. The 17-turn, 2.7-mile Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez layout couldn’t suit his style more if he had designed the course himself.
Bourdais has been one of, if not the, most dominant drivers in Champ Car history but it’s said that all good things must come to an end. That won’t happen until the conclusion of Sunday’s season finale though and as the desire to win at NHLR will take precedence over emotion, the McDonald’s team will be concentrating on ending Bourdais’ reign at Champ Car with another win on Sunday. However, the Frenchman is quick to point out that although this is his final race with the team, the relationships that have been forged will continue. ThatsRacin.com
Sebastien Bourdais, #1 McDonald’s Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone: “I hope the McDonald’s team can put on a good show again in Mexico City. Obviously you don’t want to finish your career in the series with some frustration or regret. It would be great to have a good weekend again. We’ll give our very best and hope we can finish in style.
“The race was an exciting one. I guess we put on a heck of a show for the fans. There were a lot of speed differences at times because some guys had the Bridgestone alternate tires on while others had the primary tires on so there were different paces. That’s what really allowed us to pass Justin. He decided to go with new tires on the last stop and we didn’t change them to save time and kept the old, wet (rain) tires on what was pretty-much a drying track towards the end and he was struggling. We had a good run and it was, for me, one of the best races in a long time.
“I could feel that I had made the right decision because it was pretty obvious that we were going to be graining up brand new and softer tires quite bad and I had been suffering from that most of the stint before until they cleaned up a little bit. I knew what I was doing I just didn’t know if I would run out of time or catch him at the right place. Newman, F1SA
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