No Surprises: Bourdais Takes San Jose Pole
Written by: Cassio Cortes San Jose, Calif. – 7/30/2005

Bourdais' third 2005 pole came by just 0.062 over teammate Oriol Servia. (LAT Photo)When things finally counted this Saturday, Sebastien Bourdais again topped the timesheets - for the fourth consecutive time of San Jose’s inaugural Champ Car race weekend - and secured a bonus championship point and his third Bridgestone Pole Award of the season. Today’s qualy was the only one for the SJGP, as yesterday’s session got cancelled due to track safety issues. Unlike Champ Car’s usual procedures, drivers had an unlimited allotment of laps in the session.
The Frenchman’s feat did not come as easy as it seems, however. Newman/Haas teammate Oriol Servia missed out on what would be his maiden Champ Car pole in 94 career starts by a mere 0.062, ensuring an all-N/H front-row for tomorrow’s race. The Catalonian equaled his career-best grid position, as he counts two outside poles from his Patrick Racing days.
“It's not been an easy session for us,” Bourdais said of the 35-minute long battle with Servia. “It's obviously quite tight out there, so it's very difficult to make a difference. [At one point] I got a bit too excited and made a mistake, but collected myself and made it happen, but just barely.”
“I'm quite happy for the team - obviously, a 1-2 shows how strong the team is,” added Servia, who conceded the tight layout made it difficult to get a good, clean lap. “It's just 1.4 miles, all those cars out there. I had three, four laps I was 3/10ths under [his own best] and found traffic.”
Servia found and was found, however. Third-quickest around the 1.45-mile downtown layout - his best lap of 54.570 falling some three-tenths short of Bourdais’ best - Paul Tracy was far from happy about the Spaniard's tactics.
"Obviously, trying to get a clear lap is everything, and I didn't get any help out there from Oriol," fumed PT. "I got held up four times by him, so that was pretty frustrating."
"It's the way it's goes in 1.4 miles," pondered Servia. "I always tried to be fair. I got screwed, too - it's just the nature of the game..."
RuSPORT’s A.J. Allmendinger and Tracy’s Forsythe teammate Mario Dominguez completed the top-five.
Nelson Philippe was sixth, in a session of mixed emotions for the Conquest squad: teammate Andrew Ranger caused an early ending to today’s session after finding the Turn Six tire barriers with three minutes to go. The Canadian youngster will start 11th tomorrow.
Rocketsports’ Timo Glock was the top rookie in seventh, one spot ahead of another first-year European, HVM’s Bjorn Wirdheim. RuSPORT’s Justin Wilson and PKV’s Jimmy Vasser rounded out the top-10.
HVM newcomer Rodolfo Lavin, on his first Champ Car outing of the season, placed his Lola-Ford a respectable 12th.
Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose - Starting lineup:1) Sebastien Bourdais, No.1 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.243, 96.101mph
2) Oriol Servia, No.2 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.305 95.991
3) Paul Tracy, No.3 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.570 95.525
4) A.J. Allmendinger, No.10 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.604 95.466
5) Mario Dominguez, No.7 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.654 95.378
6) Nelson Philippe, No.34 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.878 94.989
7) Timo Glock, No.8 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 54.895 94.959
8) Bjorn Wirdheim, No.4 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.054 94.685
9) Justin Wilson, No.9 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.093 94.618
10) Jimmy Vasser, No.12 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.414 94.070
11) Andrew Ranger, No.27 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.434 94.036
12) Rodolfo Lavin, No.55 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.449 94.011
13) Cristiano da Matta, No.21 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.773 93.465
14) Ricardo Sperafico, No.11 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 55.972 93.132
15) Ryan Hunter-Reay, No.31 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 56.019 93.054
16) Ronnie Bremer, No.19 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 56.452 92.340
17) Alex Tagliani, No.15 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 56.616 92.073
18) Marcus Marshall, No.5 Ford-Cosworth/Lola, 57.687 90.364