Champ Car World Series: Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver presented by PacifiCare

Topics:  Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver presented by PacifiCare

Sebastien Bourdais
Mario Dominguez
Paul Tracy
August 12, 2005

DENVER, COLORADO

ERIC MAUK: All right, Ladies and Gentlemen, we'll get started with our top three press conference following first round qualifying for the Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver, Round 9 of the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford. Our third place qualifier in today's first round of action, our series points leader, defending winner of the Centrix Financial Grand Prix of Denver, driver of the #1 McDonald's Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone for Newman/Haas Racing, Sebastien Bourdais. He puts up a quick lap of 64.347 seconds, 98.848 miles per hour. Sebastien, tell us a little about how it went for you.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, it was very good to restart the weekend the way we finished it last year. Obviously, things didn't go the same way for the qualifying session. The McDonald's car was really good this morning. We did I think 60.3 I think with 25 laps on the Bridgestone tires. Just couldn't even match it with the two new sets we put. The second set during the qualifying was ruined by traffic. We just couldn't put a lap together. It was quite light in the session. But, you know, first run was just all I got. I was just really surprised. The team was kind of disappointed. Definitely can see the grip is not there any more. We'll just investigate if the (indiscernible) broke or something, try and do better tomorrow, if the weather is letting us do it.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, I was surprised this morning because we were one second faster than the first practice of 2004. But, yeah, I can say I'm very impressed with the kind of grip I have for these sessions. We'll see how it goes. No, just a bit disappointed. As I said, it's a bad day is P3, then so be it.

MARIO DOMINGUEZ: Good afternoon to everybody. Well, first of all, I'm really happy to be part of the 1, 2 qualifying effort today for Forsythe Racing and Paul is on the pole. The qualifying was not as good as you'd think. You know, I'm in second position, but I was struggling a lot with the car in some corners, then I got a little traffic at the end. I put in my best lap time with the first set of tires. But that's the usual thing with these kind of tracks, you get a lot of traffic because the tracks are so small, a bit narrow, so it's hard to pass. But quite happy with being in second. It's my best qualifying of the year so far, so I'm very happy with that.

MARIO DOMINGUEZ: Yeah, I like this racetrack a lot. I always seem to be pretty fast around here. There's obviously some corners that I think I should improve on my driving and some corners that we can improve the car on for tomorrow to be quicker. But it's a good, fun place to drive. It's definitely very challenging. It doesn't allow you for any mistakes at all. It's very slippery on some corners so you're on the edge all the time. The car is slipping and sliding, just brushing the wall sometimes. It's quite a lot of fun driving around here.

PAUL TRACY: It was a good run. I'm very happy for the team. It's our first 1, 2 this year. Really, the first qualifying set of tires, I got a good first lap. You know, I thought that there was a little bit more and was able to improve on it all the way around the track. Then came in at the end of that first run. I told my engineer, Eric, I said, "That was a really good lap. I pretty much got everything just about right without really any small mistakes." Made a small adjustment on the shocks, went back out. We were close, but, again, there was traffic, as well. You know, then the red came out. I had a good lap going and the red came out at the end. We were happy to see that.

PAUL TRACY: Hard to say. Obviously, the track is going to improve, if there's no rain. There's potential for rain tomorrow. This track is one that improves with rubber. If the weather's good tomorrow, we're going to have to improve.

PAUL TRACY: I've done a lot more than that. In the last week, I went from a half-mile short-track stock car, went back to Vegas on a flight, did a night test with Sebastien on a high-speed superspeedway, and went back and ran stock car at Michigan for two days. Then last night we went out together and ran midgets and sprint cars, dirt-modified cars out at the Rocky Mountain Speedway, then today. I've had a pretty good experience of driving different machinery in the last seven days. It's been a lot of fun.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, really we had a very strong baseline from last year. We know it's about 18%, 20% of downforce we lose around here. There's just not a whole lot you can do. You just try to optimize the mechanical grip you've got. You know you just be (indiscernible) in downforce. You're going to slide whatsoever. I guess you just have to find your way around trying to be comfortable, especially since it's kind of bumpy around here. It's a challenging racetrack, so you need to trust the car.

PAUL TRACY: It's great. I competed against Jimmy -- my first race against Jimmy was 1986. We've known each other a long time. You know, I just came out of driving Formula Fords, Formula 2000, and him the same. I did a Formula Atlantic race. They had this big prize money invitational race in Memphis. He was there. A lot of guys were there that have kind of gone through the racing, have been here in Champ Car. We all kind of met at that time. I got to know Jimmy a little bit at that race. Obviously, we know each other really well now. It's great.

PAUL TRACY: Well, I think the tire is probably a little bit better. Obviously, it's cooler I think here than last year. That's six or seven tenths quicker than I qualified here last year. We've improved our car with shocks, springs, aero. Our car's a lot different than it was last year when we came here. We've improved quite a bit. I wouldn't imagine that Sebastien would come with too much different of a setup than he had last year because he qualified on the pole by quite a lot, and drove through the field to win the race. I wouldn't imagine he would change the car that much. I think we've just improved and that's really where the change for us has been.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: No. I think we tend to go a bit slower in the straight, that's for sure, I think like three miles an hour, four miles an hour. But that's only top speed; there's only one spot. At 180, doesn't really matter. Four miles an hour, yeah, you're losing a 10th of a second, a 10th and a half, so it's not that bad. You just lose it at the very end. The torque is the same, it's just the (indiscernible) of power that changes. I think we just go slightly faster in the turns, and at least comparing to qualifying two last year, I think everybody just brought their stuff together, that aided their game, and definitely they're giving us a hard time. Last year I think I did 60.5, and I think I was on pole for the first qualifying. This year I do a 60.3, but it's 59.7 in front. Just going to have to put our stuff together.

MARIO DOMINGUEZ: I think the track seems to be a bit cleaner than last year. That's probably part of the reason. And maybe my theory is because the car has less horsepower, it's just a little bit easier to drive around these tight places. You can be on the throttle sooner and earlier, where before you had to be a lot more careful because the back end could go around. That might not be true, but that's my theory.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: There wasn't any hockey season, right? So nobody really used this parking lot. When we came back, there still was some rubber from last year. That might be a reason why it's coming a bit faster.

PAUL TRACY: I think it's just a factor of so many cars on the track in such a small place. Any slight turbulence, you know, if you can get a completely clear lap by yourself alone where you don't have the stress of other cars around. The two laps that I did, I was completely alone, I was able to just concentrate on the lap. I didn't have a car, you know, 20 car lengths in front of me that was maybe upsetting the braking or anything like that. That's what it takes to get the whole lap together, especially when you're so low on downforce here. Any little turbulence from the car in front of you is going to upset the car. When you stick 19 cars out there all at once, the air gets, you know, 'turbulated', and the cars, they just don't respond as well.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Just traffic on the second set. Just couldn't do anything.

PAUL TRACY: We were out just screwing around. Actually a thing Paul Newman set up, so I'll let Sebastien talk bit. It was a lot of fun.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: We did that the first time in Long Beach last year -- this year, and we had a blast. We just decided to do it again. Oriol was there and Paul and PT. It was just a great time.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, I think you have to watch it to believe it. He's just -- I think I did succeed to pass him after 15 laps. It's not like I drove by and said "Hi." No, he's lost a bit of speed I think on the asphalt because obviously a bit more rush and everything. But on the dirt, he's still feeling really good. He likes to slide, that's for sure.

PAUL TRACY: Well, I think every race is crucial. You know, we're fighting. We're not giving up. It's going to be a fight all the way down to the end. It's been a bit of a seesaw battle back and forth. You know, we've came here. Mario did some testing last week at Fontana, which is kind of similar to street course testing. We learned a lot. You know, that's one of the key things with Mario coming on the team, is that he had tested, and we were able to use it later in the season. I think it really helped us this weekend. That's a big help.

MARIO DOMINGUEZ: I can't tell you. It's top secret (laughter). No, we're going to change some things in the car, the suspension, try to improve the shock absorbers and the springs, try to gain more grip on the car. In some corners, I have a lot of understeer. In some corners I have a lot of oversteer. That's what we'll do, try to work on those specific areas where we can just gain more overall grip. That will make us faster throughout the whole track.

ERIC MAUK: Thank you very much. That will end our press conference. We set our final grid with qualifying tomorrow beginning at 2:00. Thank you.