Bourdais Conquers Circuit Zolder, Closes In On Fourth-Straight Title

BOLDERBURG, Belgium — Sebastien Bourdais maintained his perfect record when the Champ Car World Series races in Europe, taking an easy victory over Bruno Junqueira in the Champ Car Belgian Grand Prix at Circuit Zolder.
Bourdais won the first two Champ Car races of his highly successful career during his rookie 2003 season at Brands Hatch in England and Germany’s Eurospeedway Lausitz. He’ll have the opportunity to go four-for-four when Champ Car races Sunday at Assen, Netherlands.
In Belgium, Bourdais led 51 of 71 laps and was 13.655 seconds ahead of Junqueira at the checkered flag. Rookie Graham Rahal put two Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing drivers on the podium by producing a great drive from 13th on the grid to third.
French native Bourdais was closely pursued over the first half of the race by his nearest championship challenger, Robert Doornbos of Minardi Team USA. But Doornbos was less efficient with his fuel, which eventually dropped him to seventh.
Will Power, who ranks third in the championship standings, qualified on the outside of the front row but was disappointed with his pace in the race and finished fourth. Bourdais now holds a 53-point advantage over Doornbos and 62 points over Power as he aims for his record fourth-consecutive Champ Car title.
“I guess it’s been a great weekend, once again — pole and win,” Bourdais said after his sixth win of the 2007 season and the 29th of his five-year Champ Car career. “It wasn’t exactly the target to go after the wins and everything, but if we could get it, for sure we were going to do so. Let’s see if we can wrap up this championship early.”
Bourdais took the lead from pole position, while Doornbos gained a place on Power heading into the first turn. Doornbos stayed with Bourdais through the first round of pit stops, under yellow on lap 17.
In the second stint, Bourdais and Doornbos again pulled away from Power. But Doornbos did so at the expense of using more fuel, and the Australian got past the Dutchman by running an extra lap. Doornbos lost additional positions to Junqueira, Rahal and Simon Pagenaud, who ran alternate pit-stop sequences, and eventually finished seventh.
Rahal led laps 41 to 47 before making his final stop, putting fellow rookie Pagenaud at the front for 13 laps. But the Frenchman’s strategy didn’t pay off, and he had to stop for fuel with seven laps to go and finished 12th.
Bourdais was behind Junqueira when the final stint of green-flag racing began on lap 53, but he made an aggressive pass a few laps later. However, Rahal was never able to get around the fuel-saving Brazilian before the end and finished third, holding off Power and  Justin Wilson.
“It turned out to be a very exciting race,” Bourdais said. “I think for the fans it was pretty cool, too, because it was always a very interesting race strategy-wise.
“It was really good to be back here in Europe and racing in front of a ‘home’ crowd for me,” he added. “There was a pretty large following of French persons around, so it was really enjoyable.”
Rahal believed his car was faster than Junqueira’s, but he couldn’t make a move on the narrow Zolder road course. “I didn’t want to go off and crash and not finish,” he said.