Graham Rahal capped off his rookie season of racing in the Champ Car World Series with a fourth place finish at the Gran Premio Tecate Presented by Banamex Champ Car season finale this weekend in Mexico City, Mexico. His performance in the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing Medi | Zone entry ensured the teenager captured fifth place in the 2007 Drivers championship and second position in the Rookieof the Year standings.
Rahal began his Mexico weekend with a comfortable seventh quickest lap in the opening practice session, a creditable effort for his first visit to the track, with many of the drivers having experienced the circuit in priorseasons of racing. Fifth quickest in provisional qualifying with the Medi | Zone car was a welcome result forRahal’s afternoon session. He was enjoying the track, but looking to make further progress as the weekendprogressed, saying, “A little bit of time makes a lot of difference here because if you can get a little more timethrough the esses, every one single corner adds up to quite a bit since there are fix or six turns in a row. Weshould be able to get up there if we can improve the car a little bit. ”
In final qualifying on Saturday Rahal slipped back to seventh on the grid for the race start, with sixth quickestlap, and knew the challenge he faced to keep fifth place in the drivers championship. “We’ve got to go forwardand move on now. ” He said after the session. “We have to finish ahead of Pagenaud and some of these otherguys ahead of us or otherwise it’s going to be tough to finish fifth in the championship. It will be tough but notimpossible. ”
Today’s race started with a scramble off the grid after three cars stalled, forcing the race director to throw ayellow which was ignored by a number of drivers and had to be sorted with a shuffle of cars. After two lapsunder safety car conditions green flag racing resumed with Rahal in seventh place. He then moved into sixthwith Roert Doornbos suffering from clutch problems and after a further ten laps he took fifth from a slowingJustin Wilson. Rahal then chased down Pagenaud and took fourth spot with fastest lap at this point in the race.
The first round of pitstops assisted Rahal in his quest for a podium spot and he was able to overtake Paul Tracy for third with his new red walled, soft, tyres when his rival came out of the pits. As the race reached halfdistance Rahal was settled in third spot and lapping comfortably with the leaders, while also saving fuel toensure he could reach the chequered flag with only one further stop. Rahal made his final pitstop from thirdplace on lap 46 and remained in this position as the race headed into the closing stages.
Despite a technical infringement in practice which cut Rahal’s Power to Pass by 22 seconds, it seemed as if Rahal was able to race for a podium. However, with less than 15 minutes of racing remaining an on track incident brought out the yellow flag and the pack of cars was lined up behind the safety car for a few laps untilbeing released to full power and a restart. Rahal, with Simon Pagenaud and other rivals behind with morePower to Pass boost available, was under pressure in this situation. However, Rahal kept his cool and maintained position down the front straight and through the first complex of corners, but this was a vulnerabletime for Rahal and Oriol Servia took advantage of this to rob Rahal of his podium lying position with only threelaps of the race remaining. Rahal held his fourth place and took the chequered flag in this position for the finalrace of his rookie season.
He said of the weekend, “We came here for the win really, but it’s great for Sebastien to take that in his finalrace of Champ Cars – he deserves his four titles and I hope he continues with his winning performances inFormula One next year.
“As we couldn’t take the win at least we had the performance to clinch fifth in the championship and second inthe rookie race and that was our other goal, so I’m pleased with these achievements today. It’s a shame wedidn’t have enough Power to Pass for a podium spot, but the car was just a little too nervous to push more andthe others had more boost left, so I think we have to be content with fourth today. ”
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