Wilson tops at Portland
Justin Wilson won the provisional pole for the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland on Friday with a course-record lap of 57.597 seconds.
The fast lap (122.756 mph) guarantees Wilson a front-row spot for Sunday’s race on the road course at Portland International Raceway. He also earns a championship point, bringing his total to 71, six points behind series leader Sebastien Bourdais.
Bourdais, the defending champion at Portland, had the third-fastest lap in 57.825 seconds, but had to forfeit the time because he surprised Wilson by coming out of the pits just as the No. 9 car was passing by. Champ Car rules forbid interfering with a driver running at full pace.
“We nearly hit,” Wilson said.
Bourdais insisted the flagman on pit lane failed to signal that Wilson was coming. He fell to fifth with a lap of 57.989 seconds (121.927 mph).
The move bumped up Paul Tracy to the third fastest, with a lap of 57.911 seconds (122.091 mph). Wilson’s RuSport teammate A.J. Allmendinger had the second-best time at 57.816 seconds (122.291 mph).
Qualifying for the fourth race on the Champ Car series continues today.
The 1.964-mile road course at PIR was reconfigured and shortened slightly, smoothing out the Festival Curves and making way for Wilson’s record.
Bourdais won the race from the pole last year, finishing ahead of Newman-Haas teammate Bruno Junqueira. Bourdais led for most of the race and won by 1.247 seconds.
Junqueira was leading the series in points this year before he broke his back at the Indianapolis 500, where he and Bourdais were the only Champ Car drivers in the 33-car Indy Racing League lineup.
Junqueira led two laps and was running sixth when he collided with A.J. Foyt IV and spun into the wall. He fractured two vertebrae and underwent surgery the next day. There is no timetable for his return. Oriol Servia is taking his place on the team.
Rookie Ronnie Bremer, who drives for HVM, was held out of practice because a set of his Bridgestone tires used at Milwaukee two weeks ago went missing. Security is an issue with high-performance tires because of the research and development that goes into them.
“The parties involved are working to resolve the issues. As part of this process, Bridgestone Motorsport and HVM agreed in a meeting this morning that the number 55 car would not participate in the first practice at Portland,” Bridgestone executive director Al Speyer.
Formula One
Juan Pablo Montoya again was the quickest driver, and this time there was no red stoplight to slow him down.
Montoya, disqualified while leading the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal last week, was the fastest at Indianapolis, in each of the first two sessions of practice for Sunday’s U.S. Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
His top lap on the 2.606-mile, 13-turn road course was 1 minute, 11.118 seconds (131.860 mph), just ahead of McLaren teammate Kimi Raikkonen, the winner at Montreal. Ferrari teammates Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher were next.
“Every year, I’ve come so close to winning this race, and something has always gone wrong,” Montoya said. “So it would be nice to come here once and get a pretty quiet weekend and a good result.”
Raikkonen’s top speed was 131.657 mph. Barrichello had a fast lap at 130.707, followed by Schumacher at 130.684 and Nick Heidfeld at 130.562.
Qualifying for the USGP is today.
Ralf Schumacher escaped serious injury when he crashed during practice, a near repeat of the accident that cost him most of last season.
The German driver lost control of his Toyota entering the final corner. The car spun around and slammed into a part of wall protected by the energy-absorbing SAFER Barrier.
He appeared to be in pain when he exited the car, rubbing his hands over his face and wincing as he waited for emergency personnel. Schumacher was cleared by the medical center, but a Toyota team spokesman said he later went to a local hospital to have his eye examined because he believed he had dirt or other debris in it.
Toyota blamed the accident on tire failure.
NASCAR
Ryan Newman is sixth in the points standings and, as usual, is leading NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series in poles. The only thing missing from his season is a victory.
“There’s races we could have won,” said Newman, who has 11 career wins, but none since last September at Dover. “We just haven’t had things fall our way this year. It’s so competitive now that you have to have more than just a great car; you also have to have some luck go your way.”
Newman will try to remedy the situation Sunday in the Batman Begins 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich., a track at which he has won twice and has four top-five finishes in seven starts, including a win last June.
•Evernham Motorsports is close to getting the money needed for a third full-time entry in NASCAR’s top series.
The third full-time Nextel Cup entry would take over the No. 91 team that is a part-time ride for Bill Elliott, team owner Ray Evernham said.
Elliott would not be the driver, but the NASCAR veteran, who cut back to a limited schedule in 2004, can remain affiliated with the program, the owner said.
“I would love to run a third team,” Evernham said. “We have the infrastructure in place. We’ve built the new building (in Statesville, N.C). We have the people ready. We have the plan ready. But I’m not going to pull the trigger until I know the money’s in place.”
•NASCAR fans in Kentucky have pined for a top series race since Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky., opened in 2000.
But the lack of a Nextel Cup event hasn’t stopped some of the series’ drivers from running at Kentucky Speedway, and five Cup regulars will be in the field for the Busch Series Meijer 300 tonight.
Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Rusty Wallace rank in the top 10 in the points standings for the Nextel Cup, and Sterling Marlin and Kentucky-born Michael Waltrip also are expected to run.
“This is a big race for Kentucky Speedway,” said Kenny Wallace, a Busch Series regular.