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Bourdais Wins Last Champ Car Race

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By JOHN RICE, The Associated Press

Published: November 12, 2007

MEXICO CITY - Sebastien Bourdais went out a winner as well as a champion in his final Champ Car race, overcoming a penalty and a lead-trimming yellow flag to win the Mexican Grand Prix before heading off to Formula One.

The St. Petersburg resident held off polesitter Will Power for his 31st career victory - tied with Al Unser Jr. and Paul Tracy for sixth in series history. And the Frenchman did it in only 73 career starts over five years.

"I'll miss it a lot," he said, struggling to control his emotions - both over the end of his ties to longtime Newman-Haas-Lanigan teammates and anger at the prerace penalty for laying rubber in the pit box.

The 28-year-old driver said he'll be in Europe by Tuesday testing cars for the Toro Rosso team he's joining for Formula One next season.

"I don't really know what to expect," he said.

Bourdais said he broke down in tears twice before the race as he "finally realized it was going to be the last time," and it also affected his crew: "The boys were really freaking out." One crew member "couldn't even change a wheel" before they had a prerace meeting and calmed themselves.

Emotions were heightened by what Bourdais termed a "weird" yellow flag for a small amount of debris on the track that robbed him of most of his hard-built lead late in the race and a prerace penalty for laying rubber in the pit box that cost him 22 seconds of push-to-pass power. Asked about that, he burst out with an expletive.

But at the end, it was a day of praise: "He's the best and most complete race driver I've ever raced against," said runner-up Power.

"I think he's going to show Formula One the level we have here," said Oriol Servia, who came in third.

Team Australia's Power led the first 23 laps before Bourdais shoved past with a burst of his now-scarce push-to-pass power, which gives Champ Car drivers a few, restricted seconds of horsepower boost to use as they choose.

Power said he also hit the button, but "I used it too late. I should have defended a lot earlier."

Push-to-pass power was increased for the Mexico race. Champ Car gave drivers 60 seconds of 50 horsepower boosts at earlier races, while they had 75 seconds of 100 horsepower boost at the 2.774-mile Hermanos Rodriguez road course. The cars' Cosworth engines produce roughly 750 horsepower without the boosts.

Justin Wilson of Britain struggled, finishing 10th, but came second in the standings to Bourdais, just like last year. He entered the race just eight points ahead of rookie of the year Robert Doornbos, whose challenge ended when he missed most of the early race with mechanical problems.

Power finished fourth in the point standings with 262, a shade behind Doornbos's 268.

Eighteen-year-old Graham Rahal, son of three-time series champion Bobby Rahal, finished fourth and wound up fifth in the series point standings.
Servia survived a stall on the standing start that dropped him to the back of the grid, then fought his way back up to third.

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