Sebastien Bourdais in car #2 who ended up number
one at Sebring
source: CART.com - John Oreovicz As the defending champion of Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford, Newman/Haas Racing will run cars 1 and 2 in 2003. The team's performance at CART Spring Training at Sebring International Raceway certainly backed up those numbers. However, it was rookie Sebastien Bourdais in car #2 who ended up number one at Sebring. The 23-year old Frenchman uncorked a 50.584 second (118.781 mph) lap in his Lilly Ford-Cosworth Lola, besting teammate Bruno Junqueira's best lap by 0.218 second. Bourdais, the reigning FIA Formula 3000 champion, looked like anything but a novice on Sebring's fast and bumpy circuit. Aside from a bump with the Turn 5 tire wall on the first of the three days, Sebastien kept his nose and his car clean. "We learned a few things from the test and it was good to see how we compared to all of the other teams," he remarked. "The car was really good and consistent on full tanks and old tires - it was amazing. We still have a lot of work to do to be ready for the first race though." Rather than running one group of cars for 2 1/2 hours in the morning and the other group in the afternoon, each group logged 75 minutes of track time in the morning and in the afternoon. Under a hot Florida sun, the track gained grip after midday but got a bit slick for the later runners.
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