Bourdais takes third straight Long Beach win

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LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Forget about that first-race misery. Sebastien Bourdais is back.

The Frenchman dominated Sunday on the way to his third straight victory in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, just a week after crashing in qualifying and in the race at the season opener in the streets of Las Vegas.

"I guess everything that could happen to us in Vegas happened but, this week, the McDonald's car showed what we could do," said Bourdais, who collected his thoughts and regained his confidence by taking the time to drive his family from Las Vegas to Long Beach in a motorhome.

"That race was like a bad dream. This is a whole lot nicer."

Bourdais, who has won 24 of 61 starts and three straight season titles in the Champ Car World Series, was certainly the class of the field this week. He started from the pole and raced away to a nearly 25-second lead _ about a third of a lap on the 1.968-mile, 11-turn downtown street circuit.

That lead evaporated when rookie Simon Pagenaud slid into a tire barrier on lap 53 of the 78-lap event, bringing out one of three full-course caution flags.

After pit stops by the leaders, Bourdais found himself trailing French rookie Tristan Gommendy, who was on a different pit strategy and had pitted last on lap 39. With surprising runner-up Oriol Servia conserving fuel and not pushing the leaders, Bourdais chose to be patient and wait for Gommendy to make his final stop.

Bourdais regained the lead on lap 68 and stayed out front the rest of the way, easily holding off Servia on a restart on lap 77 after the last caution period.

It's the longest winning streak at Long Beach since Al Unser Jr. won a record four in a row from 1988 through 1991.

Servia, the 2005 series runner-up as Bourdais' teammate, started the weekend without a ride but took over for Paul Tracy after the 2003 series champion injured his back in a crash during Saturday's practice.

"I did a great job, but nothing compared to what the team did," Servia said of his Forsythe Championship Racing crew. "I had to adjust to the car, but I'm a race car driver. The team had to adjust to me and they gave me a fabulous car and great pit stops."

Servia started 14th in the 17-car field, but used an early pit stop under caution to take the lead on lap 32 when the front-runners pitted. He was then able to take a smaller fuel load on his second stop, on lap 38, and stay near the front the rest of the way.

When rookie Alex Figge crashed hard into the tires late in the 1-hour, 40-minute timed race, Servia had one last shot at Bourdais. But the leader's Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing entry got a great jump on the restart and Servia had to settle for the runner-up spot, finishing 2.614 seconds _ about 10 car-lengths _ behind.

"To be honest, I had great shoes to fill today," Servia said. "I know PT would have tried on the last restart to go for the win. I tried, but I couldn't do it.

"I'm just really, really happy to finish second and I thank the team and Mr. (Gerald) Forsythe for trusting me to do the job."

Will Power, who won his first Champ Car race in Las Vegas and started from the outside of the front row Sunday, passed Alex Tagliani on the last lap to grab third. Justin Wilson, last year's series runner-up, also got past Tagliani on the final lap to take fourth.

That's Racin' | 04/15/2007 | Bourdais takes third straight Long Beach win