Assen - Champ Car - Qualifying 2Three-time Champ Car World Series champion Sebastien Bourdais moved one point closer to clinching a record breaking fourth consecutive crown after clinching pole position today in Assen for tomorrow's Grand Prix of Holland.
Bourdais
now has a 54 point lead over Dutch local hero Robert Doornbos. If the Frenchman wins again tomorrow and takes a European clean-sweep, Doornbos will have to finish sixth or better to ensure the title chase continues to the next round of the series in Australia on October 21.
Bourdais earned his sixth pole position of the season and the 31st of his career. He lapped the 4.55km circuit in a track record time of 1 minute 18.765 seconds after only being able to post the sixth best time in Saturday morning’s practice session.
Nearly every driver improved their time from the morning session but none as much as Bourdais, as he bettered his morning lap by nearly two seconds. The French driver will be joined on the front row by Justin Wilson, who earned his starting spot during Friday’s rain soaked qualifying. This marks the third time this season the two have shared the front row.
Four rookies will fill the next two rows on the starting grid with the PKV Racing duo of Tristan Gommendy and Neel Jani starting third and fourth respectively.
Gommendy seems to favour the natural terrain road courses, having earned the pole position earlier this season at Mont-Tremblant.
Making up the third row are 2006 Champ Car Atlantic rivals, Simon Pagenaud and Graham Rahal. While Rahal has been on the podium after the last two events and has been there for times this season, Pagenaud is still looking for his first top three finish.
Belgian driver Jan Heylen posted his best qualifying effort of the season, placing his Conquest Racing machine seventh on the grid. Heylen will start alongside Australian driver Will Power who lines up eighth.
Sebastien Bourdais
"To be honest I didn't think we were going to be P1. In the first 15 minutes, it felt like it, but then in the first run we just really struggled and we had not changed much on the McDonald’s car. So I didn't know what really happened. On the second and third run, when we went out with the Red Bridgestone alternate tyres, it was fantastic; the car came alive and I had a great time. Like I said this place is fantastic. It's really fast and a lot of fun when the car is working."
Justin Wilson
“I’m very disappointed with our lack of pace today. We just couldn’t quite work it out in qualifying and had a few problems. A rear tyre delaminated during our second stint, but I’m not sure if that was all of our problem or not. We’re fortunate that we got the front row slot from yesterday and now we’ve got to concentrate on making a good race car.”
Tristan Gommendy
“I think the Pay By Touch MegaSpirea PKV Racing team had a good qualification. We came here without a lot of pressure on us because the season is almost over. But, we worked hard and we came up with quite a good setup. Dry track, wet track it did not make a difference. We were quick. We did some good fine tuning between the morning practice and this afternoon. My engineer, Yves Touron, did a good job, because the car was exactly how it was suppose to be."
Source CCWS
