Ho hum, another Champ Car World Series 1-2 for Newman/Haas Racing source: champcarworldseries.com - David Phillips And, just like in 2004, by the last couple of races of the season, the only driver with even a mathematical chance to snatch the Vanderbilt Cup from Sebastien Bourdais was his teammate. But as anyone vaguely familiar with the 2005 Champ Car World Series can attest, it was anything but business as usual this year for Newman/Haas. The season began well enough . . . better than well enough in fact, as Bourdais won the opening round of the season at Long Beach, with teammate Bruno Junqueira finishing third. And though Bourdais finished just fifth in Round Two after a tangle with arch-rival Paul Tracy, Junqueira came through for the win. Thus the team headed to race day at the Indianapolis 500 with Junqueira and Bourdais ranked 1-2 in the Champ Car points. And Junqueira was looking good in the Indy 500, running sixth as the middle stages of the race approached and being well up on the competition in terms of fuel mileage, when disaster struck. He tangled with the lapped car of A.J. Foyt, IV and crashed, suffering back injuries that would sideline him for the remainder of the season. Adding insult to injury, Bourdais than crashed after cutting a tire little more than ten miles from the finish and with a top five, possibly even a top three, in the cards. "The start to the season was both good and bad," Carl Haas observes. "It was good in that Sebastien and Bruno won the first two races at Long Beach and Monterrey, then Bruno had a chance to win the Indy 500 before he got hurt, which was a real shame. Not only did he have a chance to win at Indianapolis but he was leading the Champ Car points at the time." With less than a week to get ready for the Milwaukee Champ Car race, Newman/Haas faced, if not a crisis, a real challenge: replace Junqueira, a driver who had not only finished runner-up in the Champ Car points the past three seasons, but had won at least one race in every Champ Car season of his career (a streak that, happily, remained intact through '05 thanks to his Monterrey win). What's more, Junqueira's technical expertise -- a real cornerstone for the team and would be keenly missed. The complete article at champcarworldseries.com
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