Champ Car-Edmonton
Power wants to beat Bourdais for title EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) – Will Power has a little extra incentive to win his first Champ Car World Series title this year.
With three-time series champion Sebastien Bourdais leaning toward taking a Formula One drive in 2008, Power wants to win in 2007 to show he can beat the best.
“It would be nice to take over for Sebastien and win three championships, or more,” the Australian driver said Saturday after winning the pole for the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton. “But this year I want to win when he’s here, before he leaves.”
Power’s third pole of the season and fourth of his career earned last year’s top rookie one point and moved him back into sole possession of second place, one point behind rookie Robert Doornbos and one ahead of Bourdais in the tightest championship battle at the halfway point in the season since 1999.
That year, Juan Pablo Montoya and Dario Franchitti battled to the end, finishing in a tie. Montoya won the tiebreaker, having more wins than Franchitti.
“The season starts here,” Power said.
Bourdais won the provisional pole Friday, earning a guaranteed front row start in Sunday’s race, the eighth of 16 events this season. But the Frenchman found it hard to get a clean lap in the final qualifying round and was unable to improve on his first-day time.
Power set the pace with a lap of 58.403 seconds (121.617 mph). That broke the track record of 58.560 set last year by Bourdais on the 1.973-mile, 14-turn circuit at City Centre Airport.
Justin Wilson, who won here last year, and rookie Graham Rahal, Bourdais’ Newman/Haas/Lanigan teammate, also were under the old mark at 58.410 and 58.485, respectively.
The other big story was a spate of crashes and spins, including off-course excursions by Bourdais and Wilson on Saturday.
“Typically, there’s not too many yellows around here (in the race),” Bourdais said. “But, yeah, we’ve seen a lot of incidents and people going off. I’ve been part of that. Justin has his fair share of spins too, I think.
“It’s quite hard. I mean, there’s quite a bit of grip. But, when the car goes, it goes. It’s tough to catch. You know, it’s gonna be a fun race tomorrow, I think.”
Power looked spent at the post-qualifying press conference. When asked about it, he said, “It’s just so physical this track, so tough. This is hard work out there, especially in qualifying. You hang it out.”
He said the big difference is the all-new DP01 cars that everyone in the series is driving this year.
“These cars have a lot more downforce,” Power said. “you’ve got a lot more weight in the wheel and you’re working really hard, definitely. But I’ve had pretty good endurance in the races this year. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”
The big disappointment so far this week has been former Formula One driver Doornbos.
The Dutchman has struggled on the Edmonton track. He was 10th in Friday’s qualifying and fell one spot on Saturday.
But poor starting positions haven’t been a problem for Doornbos. He started 13th early in the season on the street circuit at Houston and finished third. Two weeks ago, in Toronto, on another temporary circuit, Doornbos started 12th and came back to finish sixth in the rain.
“This was obviously a disappointing qualifying session for us,” said Doornbos, who won his first Champ Car race earlier this month at Mont-Tremblant near Montreal. “It started out with the overall feeling of the car improved as a result of changes we made during the morning practice session. But then on my second run this afternoon, I encountered a shifting problem.
“It was later traced to the cars power supply, but it meant I had to pit before completing the run. It’s not great to be starting from 11th on the grid, but it’s definitely possible to get a (top three) from there.”
Bourdais, who leads the series with three victories this season, said he expects the points battle to go right down to the finish Dec. 2 in Phoenix.
“It’s going to be, what, a seven or eight races’ long season?” he said “It might be this close at the end.”
Power, sitting down the table from Bourdais, nodded his head and said, “Yeah, that would be nice.”
Then he thought about it and added, “Well, not really. I’d like to be in the lead at the end. But it would be nice for the fans to see a last-race showdown. Still, the championship basically starts here.”