source:
lola-group.com
Sebastien Bourdais took a conclusive win on the 2.104-mile Fundidora Park
road circuit in Monterrey, Mexico last night. The Frenchman, driving one of
Newman/Haas Racing's Lola performed flawlessly in the second race of the 2004
season beating his team mate, Bruno Junqueira by 3.852 seconds to round out a
perfect day for Carl Haas and Paul Newman's team.
Bourdais dominated both qualifying sessions and the 72-lap Monterrey Grand Prix,
leading the most laps and setting the fastest lap of the race. Bourdais now has
the points lead (63) over Junqueira's (57) and 2003 champion Paul Tracy who
finished 7th at Monterrey in stifling conditions that saw track temperatures
soar to 128 degrees.
Bourdais' team made a myriad of changes to his Lola after the warm-up and those
adjustments worked out perfectly for the bespectacled Frenchman. "We shifted the
weight, changed the front wing, did so many things it's unbelievable it all
worked out," Bourdais revealed.
Junqueira was also delighted with a good team performance and said. "It was a
very good race between me and Sebastien. We were much faster than everybody,"
Junqueira added.
Mario Dominguez pleased the fans on his home turf by taking the final podium
position in the Herdez Lola, with a stirring drive that gained him a point for
biggest position gain when he came back through the field after a first lap
spin. "What an unbelievable day. I just can't say enough about my team, they are
the best. We had a good start and then I just lost it on the cold tyres. My
engineer told me they were working up a great strategy and to just drive as hard
as I could. Canadian veteran Patrick Carpentier took fourth place in the race
and retains fourth place championship points with 48, one in front of Dominguez.