Bourdais breezes to victory

PORTLAND – Sebastien Bourdais got his second victory of the season with a smooth performance from the pole Sunday in the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland.

Bourdais led 85 laps of the 94-lap race at Portland International Raceway, finishing with a 1.247-second advantage over teammate Bruno Junqueira, who started second.

Paul Tracy, who started third, finished third on the 1.969-mile permanent road course just north of downtown Portland. It was the fourth race on the series schedule.

Bourdais, last year’s rookie of the year, won earlier this year at Monterrey, Mexico, but he was thwarted two weeks ago in Milwaukee when he crashed early on.

“Now we’re back on the scene,” he said after he emerged from the car and hugged actor Paul Newman, co-owner of the Newman/Haas Racing team.

It was Bourdais’ fifth career win.

While the 94-lap, 186.06-mile race was mostly uneventful, the drivers dealt with very warm temperatures and, as a result, often slick track conditions.

The drivers also were required to use an alternate set of Bridgestone tires, in addition to their standard sets, at some point during the race. The softer tires, marked with a red stripe on the sidewall, are supposed to provide a better grip – and possibly more speed – at the expense of durability.

Junqueira was 2.970 seconds behind Bourdais with three laps left, but pushed on the 92nd by rounding the course in 1:00.573, the fastest lap of the race.

But he could not catch Bourdais.

“I just followed him the whole race,” Junqueira said.

Bourdais, with an average speed of 104.923, trailed only when he went to the pits. Both times Tracy temporarily took the lead, but became frustrated when he couldn’t get around Alex Tagliani to improve his chances.

The race got off to a rocky start when Michel Jourdain Jr. was bumped by Mario Dominguez and went into the gravel between the first and second turns on the opening lap, bringing out the yellow flag.

After the caution, Dominguez fishtailed on cold tires just four laps into the race, bringing out a second yellow. He clipped Rudolfo Lavin, and the day was through for both drivers.

“All of the sudden the car just turned around on me” Dominguez said.

Those were the only two cautions of the race.

It was Junqueira’s third second-place finish this season. He was also runner-up in Long Beach and Monterrey.

“I just couldn’t get by Sebastien,” he said. “We were very equal.”

Junqueira’s second-place finish kept him in the points lead with 105. Patrick Carpentier, who finished fourth, is second in points with 99, a one-point margin over Bourdais.

Bourdais, who took advantage of last week’s break in the Champ Car series to return to his native France for the 24 hours of Le Mans, won the pole in Portland on Saturday with a fast lap of 59.229 seconds at an average speed of 119.678 mph.

Junqueira, Bourdais’ Newman/Haas teammate, had won the provisional pole on Friday.

American Ryan Hunter-Reay, coming off a dominant pole-to-pole win at the Milwaukee Mile two weeks ago, started 10th and finish 12th.