Three-time defending Champ Car World Series champion Sebastien Bourdais is facing the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix from a very different viewpoint, as a crash in second qualifying left him at the back of the grid. source: crash.net The Frenchman will start 16th in a 17-car field, the worst position of his highly-successful career, after damaging the #1 McDonalds Panoz in pursuit of pole. Bourdais had been sitting second on the session timesheets, and had posted a time that would have put him at least sixth on the final grid, but contact with the wall not only left him unable to continue the session, but also cost him his best time of the day after necessitating a red flag. "I screwed up and brushed the wall on the outside of turn nine," he admitted candidly, "The McDonald's car had too much understeer and I just forced the thing. The car stepped out a little bit on exit, and I was already too close to the wall and hit the rear a little bit. "It wasn't that bad a hit, but it bent the toe link and broke the rim. To aggravate things, we had the clutch creeping, so I couldn't get into neutral, couldn't back up, couldn't do anything. We were stuck in fourth gear in front of [the] tyres, and they wouldn't push me back or do anything, so I was stuck there until they moved me out of the way." Unable to redeem himself, Bourdais is resigned to starting from the outside of row eight, and admits that he is not sure he can continue his record of winning first time out at each of Champ Car's new venues. "We have 60 seconds of 'push to pass', which isn't a lot here, so we are going to have to be pretty darn good to get it done - but we'll see," he said enigmatically, "It's a new track, so we don't quite know if it's possible to pass or not. "I think turn one seems to be pretty difficult, because everyone starts braking in the middle of the track, so maybe turn four might be the best option. We'll have to try and pull it off. We've done it before, but it was a different thing - now we don't have the car we knew. It's not the best way to start the season, for sure."
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