McDonald’s® driver Sebastien Bourdais earned his second consecutive win in the Grand Prix of Houston today and took over the lead in the Champ Car point standings for the first time this season with 73 points to Will Power’s 70.
He started the 1 hour 45 minute race in second place but the first lap of the race was run under caution because the field wasn’t aligned properly. Once the race went green on the second lap, Bourdais was alongside pole sitter Will Power going into the first curve of the chicane but would have made contact with the Australian had he attempted to drive around the next curb as intended. Instead, he cut across the chicane to avoid contact and the move put him in the lead. Champ Car officials ordered him to give up the position but by that time Justin Wilson had passed Power for second therefore Bourdais had to let Wilson by. He ran in second place only one half of a second behind Wilson until Lap 14 when he passed him going into the chicane.
He steadily increased his lead each lap over second place and was over six seconds ahead when he set the fastest lap of the race on Lap 27 before a caution flag flew on Laps 28-32 for debris. In addition to debris on the track, Bourdais had been carrying debris in the form of part of a banner on his front left wing for a few laps and that was removed on his first pit stop when the entire field came in on Lap 29. He returned to the track and reclaimed the lead. After the race was restarted he reported to the crew that the car did not feel right. It was later decided that there was a potential problem with the right rear shock but fortunately that never deterred him. He ran approx. one second ahead of second place Oriol Servia who was filling in for the injured Paul Tracy. By Lap 42 he increased the lead over second to 1.6-seconds and held it until a caution for the stalled car of Roberto Moreno, who was filling in for rookie Alex Figge who suffered back pain from his accident in Long Beach last weekend.
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