Sebastien Bourdais

The win was the second of the year for Bourdais and the 18th of his career as he bested Paul Tracy by 1.238 seconds in a final-lap shootout. Dominguez moved into second place in the championship standings with a third-place finish, marking the 10th career podium of his career. From his fifth-place starting spot, Bourdais needed just one lap to move into fourth, three more to take third and by lap 10 he had slipped past his Newman/Haas teammate Bruno Junqueira and into second place. He then erased a five-second lead in running down Dominguez, taking the lead briefly on Lap 27. He made the pass for the lead just as the caution banner waved for a track problem but the advantage went back to Dominguez when the track problems followed Bourdais to Pit Lane. A patch in the surface broke under the pressure of the car's air jacks, causing the team to lose time in changing the tires, allowing Dominguez to reclaim the lead after a quick stop by the Forsythe Championship Racing crew. Dominguez took advantage of the problem and roared away from Bourdais and Tracy, holding the lead for the next 37 laps while a fierce battle raged behind the front-running trio. A.J. Allmendinger, Alex Tagliani , Will Power and Junqueira went nose-to-tail for spots four through seven, with Tagliani taking the fourth spot from Allmendinger and holding it for four laps before yielding it to Junqueira.

But while most of the large crowd's attention was focused on that battle, Dominguez turned heads on Lap 67 by rolling into the runoff area in Turn Five, having missed the corner at the end of the long, sweeping turn in front of the Houston Astrodome. Dominguez quickly corrected his mistake and got back on track, but only after Bourdais and Tracy had raced past him and into the lead.The Mexican star got a reprieve soon four laps later however, as the yellow flag waved when Power and Charles Zwolsman got together heading into Turn One. The leaders pitted for the final time of the race, this time without incident, putting Bourdais ahead of Tracy and Dominguez for the Lap 77 restart.

But as he has been a number of times before, Bourdais was equal to the task, pulling out to a three-second lead over Tracy, who was content to sit back in second knowing that he had 15 seconds more Cosworth Power-to-Pass horsepower remaining in his tank, as Bourdais had used much of his making his early-race climb to the front. Tracy's disadvantage was erased on Lap 88, not with a push of his power button, but with just one flick of the starter's wrist as Tagliani and Oriol Servia tangled in Turn One as Servia tried to make a pass on the inside of the chicane. Servia's car was too damaged to continue, while the fourth-placed Tagliani was able to continue, albeit to radio reports of possible suspension damage. That damage became all too apparent as the cars circulated under the caution flag as Tagliani ended his night deep into the Turn Three tire barrier, causing a lengthy delay to extricate his buried car, and sending him to nearby Hermann Hospital for precautionary x-rays.

The long cleanup meant that the race would come down to a one-lap shootout with Tracy and Dominguez perched right on Bourdais' tail with third-year driver Nelson Philippe eyeing his best Champ Car finish from the fourth spot. Bourdais got a great restart and pulled away from Tracy, who could not get close enough to use his power-to-pass in an attempt to catch the series points leader.

Philippe held off a furious effort from Justin Wilson on the final lap to secure the fourth position, leaving Wilson to round out the top five. Andrew Ranger finished the day in the sixth spot, earning the championship point for gaining the most positions in the race for the second consecutive week. Power's seventh-place run made him the top-finishing rookie in the event, and also gave him a four-point lead in the Roshfrans Rookie-of-the-Year standings over Jan Heylen. Bourdais holds an 18-point lead in the championship standings over Dominguez, while Wilson sits in the third, 20 points behind the leader.
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A.J. Allmendinger starts fourth followed by Sebastien Bourdais, Alex Tagliani, Justin Wilson, Oriol Servia, Nelson Philippe and Will Power to round out the top ten.
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”I’m looking forward to racing Champ Cars for several more years. This was actually a pretty easy decision for me. I’ve been checking out some other types of race series this year and that’s been a great learning experience and a lot of fun, but at the end of the day there’s just nothing like Champ Car. The depth of talent, the machinery, the challenge of driving all kinds of circuits - plus the direction and growth of the series has everybody feeling very energized with where it’s going over the next few years. There are tremendous historic tracks like Milwaukee, Road America, Cleveland, plus some great new events like Houston this week, San Jose, Mexico City, Edmonton and some others I hear are in the pipeline. And the new 2007 car looks like it’s going to be a real step up so I felt like I needed to stick around and be a part of this whole scene.

"Champ Car is where I made my name and my career, and I owe a lot to the fans that stuck with us through thick and thin. Now we’re on the rebound and all that loyalty is paying off, so my hat’s off to them. The fans are what keeps this series strong and what really prompted my decision to stay. There are no fans like Champ Car fans and I’m very happy that I’ll get to keep racing for them.”

Additional Bridgestone Pole Position Qualifying shows will carry qualifying action from Monterrey, Mexico on May 20, Milwaukee on June 4, Denver on August 12, Road America on September 23, Ansan, South Korea on October 15, Surfers Paradise on October 22 and Mexico City on November 11. -- “SPEED realizes that for the true race fan, the weekend’s racing action really starts with qualifying,” said Rick Miner, SPEED SVP of Programming & Production. “Without qualifying, it’s like trying to pick up a book and read it from the middle … to understand the entire story, you need to start at the beginning.” -- This weekend’s coverage of the Grand Prix of Houston begins with Saturday morning’s qualifying show on SPEED and culminates with live race coverage from Reliant Park with the green flag flying at 9 p.m. Eastern on SPEED.

"Jim and Steve did a great job of getting us to where we are now but to get to where we need to be we've decided to go a different direction," Vasser tells Miller in a column on Champ Car's official website.

McGee, the only manager or chief mechanic to win a championship in each of the last four decades, was hired last year by PKV to help the third year squad move up the championship podium. One of McGee's first moves was to hire Krisiloff and driver Cristiano da Matta.

The move to bring the former Champ Car champion to PKV paid dividends just four races into the season when da Matta captured the event in Portland in typical McGee style. Pitting out of sequence, the Brazilian managed to hold off the likes of Sebastien Bourdais and Paul Tracy to claim victory. Da Matta appeared on his way to a second straight win in Cleveland until he crashed out of the race. From there, the duo managed just two top 10 results in eight races and finished 11th in the championship.

Miller writes that PKV's decision to replace da Matta with rookie Katherine Legge did not sit well with McGee. "This is not what I wanted because I chose those two guys and I respect them very much," said Vasser. "It just didn't work out."(tsn.ca)