Graham Rahal led today’s Champ Car race at Mont-Tremblant in Quebec, Canada, and looked on course for a podium finish but a delayed pitstop put paid to his chances, with seventh place at the chequered flag a small consolation for his efforts.
The Mont-Tremblant circuit hosted the first of three Canadian races in the 2007 Champ Car World Series season. The first day of practice and qualifying, in dry conditions, produced ninth fastest lap for Rahal, his provisional qualifying position. Yesterday the weather changed and with rain falling prior to qualifying the session produced slower lap times for most of the cars. Although the 18-yearold racer had improved his performance in the earlier practice session and ran third quickest in the afternoon qualifying, the fastest times were from Friday’s session and Rahal gridded in ninth for the race.
The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing Medi I Zone driver took his sixth Champ Car start today. The standing start now used by the Champ Car World Series was blighted by three cars stalling, one of which was the car of Simon Pagenaud who was immediately in front of the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver. As the red lights went out and the cars left the grid Rahal had to quickly take avoiding action around the stalled car. With the melee of the three cars Rahal was fortunate to gain two positions to lie seventh at the end of the opening lap.
A fuel preservation segment followed with Rahal driving conservatively to stretch his fuel mileage. Pitting after 19 laps, Rahal changed from the red, softer tyres to the primary tyres and in the first round of stops improved a position to be running in sixth place. Soon after all the drivers had pitted and taken on new slick tyres light rain began falling in some sections of the track. The field persevered as the rain passed through, although a safety car period slowed up the field for a few laps.
The field were set to return to green flag racing but a mechanical problem for Tracy left him on the side of the track, while Rahal’s team mate, Sebastien Bourdais slid into the gravel, promoting the Medi I Zone car to fifth place. He gained a further place with a retirement of third placed Dan Clarke to lie fourth after 35 laps of the Mont-Tremblant race.
A safety car period at this point was used by the leaders to take on more fuel with Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing opting for Rahal to stay out on track and lead the race for the second time in his Champ Car career. Rain started falling again and with Rahal needing to pit for fuel and tyres, he was able to pit from the lead to refuel and change to treaded wet tyres. A rare electronic problem as he went to leave the pits delayed Rahal’s return to the track with the resultant loss of track position, dropping the Ohio driver to 10th place.
With rain continuing and a slippery track, the conditions challenged the drivers, leaving Rahal battling the weather as well as his rivals ahead. In the final 15 minutes of racing the Champ Car rookie pushed hard to pass Ryan Dalziel for ninth, and Oriol Servia for eighth place. A final safety car closed up the field for the final burst of racing to the chequered flag, and Rahal taking Alex Tagliani for seventh.
Rahal said after the race, “We were unlucky again today, it’s been the story of so many of my weekends this year. We were being very patient and had a good strategy, so it was looking very positive for us. I found that I could cope well with dry tyres in the damp conditions so that really helped our pace. The choice of tyres at the last stop was mine and I was very worried that I’d made the wrong call asking for wets, but it turned out to have been the right call, although we weren’t able to use it to our advantage.
“We should have been upfront at the end, but our problems in the pitstop ruined any chance of that happening. After that I just drove as hard as I could to get as many points as possible. I’m still waiting for the luck to turn in my direction and it’s still not happened. The Newman/Haas/Lanigan crew had given me great pitstops and had a strategy that looked as if it was going to work in our favour, but it didn’t work out, just one of those rare mechanical issues which is no ones fault. We’ll keep trying and be back next week for another crack at a win. ”
The Champ Car World Series moves on to Toronto next weekend for the second of the three Canadian events, a street race around the city, which starts on Friday 6 July and culminates with the race on Sunday 8 July.
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