He may not have had the fastest car all day, but Sebastien Bourdais drove a heady, mistake-free race to collect his second consecutive Denver win and his fourth victory this season for Newman/Haas Racing.
source: champcarworldseries.com Bourdais took the lead for keeps when pole sitter Paul Tracy crashed on the 63rd of 97 laps on the temporary circuit around Pepsi Center and pulled away to a 15-second win over Mario Dominguez, Tracy's teammate at Forsythe Championship Racing. The win is also the 14th in Bourdais' three-year Champ Car career, moving him into sole possession of 17th place on the all-time series list and within one victory of two-time champion Alex Zanardi. All of Bourdais' Champ Car wins have come on Bridgestone Potenza tires. And while the Frenchman admitted he "abused" his first set of tires today trying to pass A.J. Allmendinger and then chase down Tracy, he said the final two stints were flawless in great part due to the Potenzas. "After that first stint, the Bridgestones performed exactly the way we wanted them to," Bourdais said. "The balance was consistent, the performance was consistent. I'm really happy with them." A foggy helmet visor forced Dominguez into a mistake and he drove into a runoff area on lap 72. But he leaned on his Potenza tires to charge back and pass Allmendinger on the next-to-last lap to secure second place - the first podium finish of 2005 for the Mexican driver. "It was tough because I was really driving the car on the edge trying to catch A.J.," Dominguez said. "I saved some push-to-pass, A.J. got some traffic and I just timed the pass perfectly. The Bridgestone tires were really good all day. I did over 40 laps on my first stint on tires that already had eight laps on them - and they were still running fast. I was really happy with the way the Bridgestone tires behaved, especially on a track like this where you use a lot of your rear tires and traction is vital. It gives the tires a beating but I'm happy with the way they performed."
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