Sebastien Bourdais is hoping to return to the top spot of the podium in Cleveland for this weekend's 25th running of the Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland and increase his lead in the championship standings in the process. source: crash.net The Frenchman, who holds a 30 point advantage over second place Justin Wilson in the standings acknowledges his #1 Newman-Haas Lola has yet to be as good as it was here for his first of two back-to back wins in 2003 and 2004, he believes the team has made improvements on this type of course. "Cleveland has provided a challenge for us the past could of years," said Bourdais who won the first four races of the Champ Car World Series season and finished third in Portland last weekend. "We had a very good car the first year and even since the McDonald's team has struggled there. I never have been as happy with the car as the first year. Last year was particularly frustrating but I think we made some nice improvements on bumpy tracks and hopefully it will turn the results around." This year will mark the fourth race for the Frenchman on the wide-open spaces of Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport temporary road course. In the debut of having McDonald's on his car in Cleveland in 2003, he led 33 laps en route to his first of many wins in the United States. Although he earned back-to-back wins at Cleveland in 2004 after starting third, it was not a dominant performance. He ran as high as second place last year after again starting third but the timing of a caution flag and the fact that a few frontrunners made the split second call to pit before the pits were closed contributed to his fifth place finish. Bourdais says he is looking forward to the challenge the track presents and the possibility of joining Emerson Fittipaldi and Danny Sullivan as the only drivers to have won three times in Cleveland.
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