BELLE UNION, Ind. — Champ Car’s 17-entry field will be subject to yet   another driver change for the final two weeks of the season.
Conquest Racing announced Oct. 3 that Nelson Philippe will take over the wheel of its No. 34 Panoz for races in Australia and Mexico. 
Philippe, 21, is the defending champion of the Surfers Paradise race but was shut out of a drive for most of this year. Support from Jupiter Property Development Group enabled him to return to single-seaters.
“I’m excited to be back in Champ cars and there is no better time with Surfers right around the corner,” stated Philippe. “It has been a challenge to be sidelined this year, but things happen for a reason and right now it’s full steam ahead for Australia and Mexico.”
Philippe’s comeback comes at the expense of Jan Heylen, who scored Conquest Racing’s best Champ Car result with second place in the most recent race at TT Circuit Assen. Heylen took over the Conquest ride at mid-season from Matt Halliday. In retrospect, it appears Heylen was recruited to help promote Champ Car’s race at Zolder, Belgium. 
Now, the same thing is being done with Philippe in Australia.
Philippe actually started his Champ Car career at age 17 with Conquest in 2004. He had his best season with the team now known as Minardi USA in 2006, winning in Australia and finishing in the top five on six occasions to claim fourth place in the overall series standings. But that wasn’t enough to guarantee a ride in 2007 in the cash-strapped series.
“While we’re pleased to get Nelson back into the Conquest fold, we are disappointed that it must come at Jan’s expense,” said Conquest Racing owner Eric Bachelart. “We simply are not equipped at this point to run two cars and the change is not a reflection on Jan’s  performance or professionalism.”

• Thirteen Champ Car drivers logged miles testing at Sebring Int’l Raceway, with Team Australia’s Will Power emerging fastest after two days of running. Power ran a 51.51 second lap in his Derrick Walker-run Panoz.
“We tried a lot of different things for the test and to be fastest is a great result,” Power said. “Our main objective was to try things out for Surfers, because that is a very important race for us. We definitely found what we were looking for as well as some things that we can work on during the winter.”
Sebastien Bourdais of Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing was fastest the first day of the test before handing off to teammate Graham Rahal. 
Bruno Junqueira was second-fastest for Dale Coyne Racing, while Pacific Coast Motorsports posted the biggest surprise of the test, with Mario Dominguez third and rookie Alex Figge fifth.