Grand Prix of Denver Race Results

[marcus]

STARTING GRID FOR GRAND PRIX OF DENVER

1.Sebastien Bourdais 59.942 (10th Career Pole)
Newman/Haas Racing
27th Career start


2. Bruno Junqueira 1:00.525 (12th time starting 2nd)
Newman/Haas Racing
66th career start


3. Paul Tracy 1:00.588 (15th time starting 3rd)
Forsythe Championship Racing
218th Career start


4. Patrick Carpentier 1:00.595 (6th time starting 4th)
Forsythe Championship Racing
135th Career start


5.Mario Dominguez 1:00.721 (3rd time starting 5th)
Herdez Competition
46th Career start


6. Oriol Servia 1:00.813 (3rd time starting 6th)
Dale Coyne Racing
81st Career start


7. A.J. Allmendinger 1:00.907 (2nd time starting 7th)
RuSPORT
9th Career start


8. Ryan Hunter-Reay 1:01.072 (3rd time starting 8th)
Herdez Competition
27th career start


9. Mario Haberfeld 1:01.198 (1st time starting 9th)
Walker Racing
27th Career start


10. Justin Wilson 1:01.265 (1st time starting 10th)
Mi-Jack Conquest Racing
9th Career start


11. Alex Tagliani 1:01.266 (7th time starting 11th)
Rocketsports Racing
86th Career start


12. Jimmy Vasser 1:01.334 (13th time starting 12th)
PKV Racing
213th Career start


13. Michel Jourdain Jr. 1:01.345 (5th time starting 13th)
RuSPORT
147th Career start


14. Nelson Phillipe 1:01.522 (1st time starting 14th) Career best qualifying
Mi-Jack Conquest Racing
6th Career start


15.Rodolfo Lavin 1:01.794 (4th time starting 15th)
Forsythe Championship Racing
27th Career start


16. Guy Smith 1:02.113 (2nd time starting 16th) Equal Career best qualifying
Rocketsports Racing
2nd Career start


17. Gaston Mazzacane 1:02.412 (1st time starting 17th)
Dale Coyne Racing
7th Career start


18. Roberto Gonzalez 1:02.507 (3rd time starting 18th)
PKV Racing
11th Career start



FAST FACTS

Last year Pole Sitter was Bruno Junquiera with a time of 1:01.438 , Im not sure how much the changes to the track have affected lap times compared to last year but Bourdais set a time 2.018 seconds faster than last years pole.

There have been some changes to the track layout this year find out more in this article




RESULTS OF GRAND PRIX OF DENVER


1. Sebastien Bourdais (8th Career Victory)


2. Paul Tracy


3. Bruno Junqueira


4. Mario Dominguez


5. AJ Allmendinger


6. Oriol Servia


7. Justin Wilson


8. Mario Haberfeld


9. Patrick Carpentier


10.Alex Tagliani


11.Rodolfo Lavin


12.Roberto Gonzalez


13.Nelson Phillipe


14.Michel Jourdain Jnr


15.Gaston Mazzacane




DNF’S

Ryan Hunter-Reay Contact 72 laps completed
Jimmy Vasser Engine 63 laps completed
Guy Smith Electrical 56 laps completed



DID YOU KNOW ?

This was the 3rd Champcar race to be held on this layout in Denver

In 1990 and 1991 there were Champcar races held in Denver but on a different layout , both were won by Al Unser Jnr

Sebastien Bourdais set the fastest lap of the race on lap 89 with a time of 1:01.256




CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1. Sebastien Bourdais 248
2. Bruno Junqueira 192
3. Paul Tracy 180
4. Alex Tagliani 164
5. Patrick Carpentier 154
6. Mario Dominguez 149
7. Ryan Hunter-Reay 144
8. A.J. Allmendinger (R) 137
9. Jimmy Vasser 131
10. Oriol Servia 125
11. Justin Wilson (R) 124
12. Michel Jourdain Jnr 114
13. Mario Haberfeld 112
14. Rodolfo Lavin 101
15. Roberto Gonzalez (R) 87
16. Nelson Philippe (R) 51
17. Gaston Mazzacane (R) 50
18. Alex Sperafico (R) 47
19. Memo Gidley 15
20. Guy Smith 14
21. Tarso Marques 6


NATIONS CUP POINTS

1 Canada 249
2 France 242
3 Brazil 209
4 USA 201
5 Mexico 184
6 Catalonia 123
7 England 122
8 Argentina 50


CONSTRUCTORS CUP POINTS

1 Lola 297
2 Reynard 112


ROOKIE OF THE YEAR POINTS

1. AJ Allmendinger 137
2. Justin Wilson 124
3. Roberto Gonzalez 87
4. Nelson Phillipe 51
5. Gaston Mazzacane 50
6. Alex Sperafico 47
7. Guy Smith 14


PREVIOUS ROUND RESULTS

Rnd 1 Long Beach
Rnd 2 Monterrey
Rnd 3 Milwaukee
Rnd 4 Portland
Rnd 5 Cleveland
Rnd 6 Toronto
Rnd 7 Vancouver
Rnd 8 Road America



WHATS NEXT?

Rnd 10 Montreal August 29

All pictures from www.champcarworldseries.com

[marcus]

Interesting race , unfortunately for me Race Director didnt work that well , so I didnt see all of the action , but from what I did see Bourdais did an amazing job coming back from what happened at turn one.

The boy is good !!!!!!!!

[Kicking-back]

Bourdais was head and shoulders above the rest, well done to him.

Allmendinger had a good run too.

No-one else really did anything of note.

[Adam43]

I'm glad he came through. He was superb, especially from the last restart.

[Kicking-back]

Controlled agression.

[Testure]

A pretty good race. A remarkably good race considering what Denver was like in 2002! Bourdais was really on top of his game, hugely impressive to come through the field like that. Servia impressive again. Anyway, a goodly amount of overtaking and the pit rules seemed to work OK to me. A blessed relief after the coma-inducing display in Hungary earlier in the day!

[carsten66]

Again, a race that was really fun to watch... and the second great race in a row... so it's starts working well for the Champ Cars!

[camcartfan]

Unfortunately, Champ Cars is now almost as predicatable as Formula 1.

[Silver Dream]

I would be grateful if anyone can enlighten me about how Catalonia acquired its 'nation' ranking status in Champ Car. I remember in the '80's when Barcelona was awarded the Olympics and there was an almighty outcry when some nationalists tried to claim the games for the region rather than for Spain.

Given Champ Car's international following isn't this seen as controversial?

[mp356a]

Hungary = Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Denver = Wow.

The best audio so far this year on Spike. Still poor video, many missed passes. Still embarassing to watch Spike with the Mrs.
That network must have a serious loser target audience. I can not imagine watching any of the **** they advertised, even when I was single.

Still a much better afternoon compared to the yawn-fest from the morning.

Mike

[Liz]

I watched it on Race Director, as we poor Canadians got shuffled to the 11:30 p.m. slot yet again ... and found it to be a famous victory. Nice that the officials apologized to PT for the bogus penalty at Road America!

[mountainstar]

Looked like a great race and the weather was perfect.

[Led ZeppF1]

Bourdais.

Its shame that I have no acces to watch Champcars . I hope Bourdais will make move to F1 next year.

[dubby99]

This has got to be Bourdais greatest drive in his champcar career so far, an unbeliveable qualifying lap on P1 then drop back to P13 then an awsome drive to carve his way back to 1ST.

Reminds me of a driver we will always miss.

[macdaddy]

Great drive by Bourdais, he's running away from the championship now.

248 Bourdais
-56 Junqueira
-68 Tracy
-84 Tagliani
-94 Carpentier

I was expecting alot more yellow flags, to be honest. Pretty clean racing was seen throughout the field. The amount of green-flag racing just makes Sebastien's feat all the more impressive. The mandated pit window was so wide, that it really didn't seem to play a major role in the strategies. Another great result for Servia and Coyne - this is great to see!

[racinthestreets]

Bourdais was amazing. It was an awesome experience watching him climb his way back. When his manager reminded him that they needed to finish (about half way) and he said "finish, I think we can win" that was impressive. I think that last time that a driver and car were so much above the field was when Zanardi came roaring back to win in Cleveland. Cheers to Sebastien Bourdais and NH Racing.

[macdaddy]

(Zanardi did it in Vancouver, too)

[f1manoz]

Fascinating race, particularly the charge from Bourdais. I'll be pencilling him in as champion right about now, because it's obvious Junky and PT just have no answer to him at the moment.

The race in general was superb with a lot of action happening on track, without the flurry of yellows that usually produce close racing.

[BootsOntheSide]

Seb was always strong title favourite this year, and he's living up to his billing with another great drive, through the fiel with comaprative ease. Good all-round entertainment, which is somethign you can't say about the F1.

[Amar7605]

What also needs to be acknowledged is that the American AJ Allmendinger is ahead in the rookie points. I love Justin Wilson, but his results have been rather volatile. Meanwhile, AJ just chugs along and has reamined more consistent in his finishes.

[Dov]

The positives:

(1)What a fantastic charge through the field by Bourdais after being spun by his teammate on lap 1/turn 1.

(2)Lots of passing and battles throughout the race. I'm not sure if they've tweaked the Push 2 Pass button, but it seems to be working a lot better now.

(3)The new pit rules made the race much more interesting, now all they need to do is eliminate the final mandatory pit stop and it will be perfect!

(4)Denver turned out to be a great event....very well promoted and the crowds (attendance) coundn't have turned out to be any better.

The negatives:

(1)Canadians missed plenty of action due to TSN's incompetence. I know that TSN will not reply to my email(S) so I'm going to send them directly to OWRS/CCWS and let them no that this long time ChampCar fan has had enough and they better do something about it!

(2)While it was good of the officials to apologize to PT for penalizing him last week at RA they are still very inconsistent as Bruno should have recieved a penalty for crossing the start/finish line before Sebastien at the beginning of the race.

(3)Spike TV's coverage is slowly getting better, but right now it seems like one step forward and two steps back.

Other then that it was one of the better race weekends this year. Roll on Montreal!

[Omega99]

I admit, as good as I believed Bourdais was from the beginning, I still had my doubts about his maturity and his ability to overcome adversity, but this race put that all out of sight.

After he spun, he maintained his composure and showed maturity beyond his years and just charged back to third place by simply driving faster than anyone else. Much faster. Bourdais is set for F1 soon. Hopefully we get some more time with him though.

And hats off to the stewards for not calling any penalties!

And the TSN coverage wasn't great, they missed a lot of action, but they did cut out the lifestyle bits, which was nice.

[Omega99]

Oh, one thing I wanted to ask was why there was no call when Junqueira jumped the start? If the transponder showed him crossing the line first, then that seems to be pretty clear evidence of an infraction, and they've made the rule on starts very clear this year. What's the deal?

[enemy-ace]

I finally got to watch the race and all I have to say is WOW!!!!!
Bourdais' drive has to rank as one of the best in Champ Car history.
After the early spin he was the picture of controlled aggression. His early pass on Bruno was fantastic to watch and must be uttertly demoralising to Bruno. Really great job!
Dominguez did a super job as well and was just great to watch. He really is quite aggressive behind the wheel and under braking. His pass on Carp was thrilling. Leaving his braking so late and both cars right on the limit of adhesion going side by side through turn 1. Excellent clean racing by both Mario and Pat.
Almendinger keeps going from strength to strength. Leading the rookie championship over the very qualified Wilson has to really be a great confidence boost for him.
Kudos must go to Servia as well. Taking what has been a perennial backmarker and DRIVING them into contention. He has really been earning his stripes this season.
I really enjoyed watching those Champ Cars race. They really do look like beasts to handle. Twitching under braking and just slightly stepping out under acceleration (stepping out a little more for some drivers ). Real Race Cars! Can't wait to see them at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Seems appropriate that these cars should race at the circuit named after one of the greatest at car control of all time.

[Flatspot]

Originally posted by Omega99
If the transponder showed him crossing the line first, then that seems to be pretty clear evidence of an infraction, and they've made the rule on starts very clear this year. What's the deal?

That is a great question so I consulted the rulebook and believe the answer lies herein:

Excerpts from Rule 6.21.1
...The determination of the order and formation of the field will be made soley by the Starter at the time the starting signal is displayed...The decision of the Officials as to whether a driver improperly advanced positions prior to crossing the starting line at the start of the race is not subject to protest or appeal.

The Starter made the call and the transponder is irrelevant per the rules.