San Jose Enduro All in a Day’s Work for Bourdais
Written by: David Phillips San Jose, Calif. – 7/31/2005

Bourdais leads Tracy around the tight confines of San Jose. (LAT photo)“That,” smiled RuSPORT owner Carl Russo after the inaugural running of the Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose, “was a day’s work.”
With all due respect for Russo, it was more like a week’s work – at least for the officials and construction crews who labored around the clock erecting, modifying, re-modifying and re-re-modifying the 1.4 mile circuit through the city streets (and over the trolley tracks) of San Jose.
As for the drivers, well nobody would deny the nine still circulating at the checkered flag earned their pay. One look at the cars leaping-bounding-porpoising across the city trolley tracks at 155mph in the opening laps of the race would convince even the fiercest skeptic of their chauffeurs’ work ethic.
Their sanity may have been another matter . . .
“Going across the tram tracks seeing (Bjorn) Wirdheim’s car six inches off the ground ahead of me . . . “ Justin Wilson’s voice trailed off.
Sebastien Bourdais also had a bird’s eye view of some cars over the course of the day, seeing as how he ran second to Wirdheim and Ronnie Bremer at various times in a race replete with alternate pit stop strategies. But when the dust and carbon fiber chips settled, the road ahead of Bourdais was clear.
That was hardly unexpected. After all, he’d pipped Newman/Haas teammate Oriol Servia for pole by 0.062sec on a track that offered two chances for overtaking: slim and none. And when the two teammates dutifully followed the starter’s instructions to manufacture a single file start – in order to avoid carnage in the chicane at the end of the 185 mph pit straightaway – the running order was largely cast in concrete.
At least until cars began dropping like flies in the claustrophobic and unforgiving confines of the run from the Turn Three to Turn Six. Riccardo Sperafico never finished a lap, after colliding with Dale Coyne Racing teammate Bremer on the first lap at Turn Three. Next to go was A.J. Allmendinger, who walloped the Turn Four wall after nine laps.
Then came the first round of pit stops, when Paul Tracy took on a few ounces less fuel than Servia and leapfrogged past the Catalan onto Bourdais’ gearbox with Mario Dominguez, Wilson and Timo Glock in attendance. For his part, Bremer eschewed the pit stop and assumed the lead – having pitted earlier during the full-course yellow to remove Sperafico’s car.
The restart saw Bourdais as the meat in a Bremer/Tracy sandwich, pressing the Dane even as he conserved fuel and tried to avoid serious mistakes even as he conserved fuel. Bremer’s run at the front lasted until he stopped for fuel on Lap 47, handing the lead back to Bourdais who, in turn, pitted for a second time on Lap 60, handing the lead over to Wirdheim who had pitted out of sequence after reports – erroneous it turned out – he was spraying oil.
Once more, Bourdais did his balancing act.
“I was in the preferred position and I just tried to stay there,” he said. “Although a few guys out of sync definitely didn’t make it easy. I mean, we were saving fuel. Obviously the guys out of sync were not. It was really difficult because if you were trying to pass the guy, you definitely had to pass him and it really felt difficult. I also had PT behind me waiting to get the best advantage of the smallest mistakes I was going to make.
“So I just elected to to try and be safe, keep saving fuel and wait for my turn to take the lead back, and more importantly, not make any mistakes.”
He worked that strategy to perfection, reclaiming the lead for good when Wirdheim stopped for the final time on Lap 72.
Tracy got away with some wall-banging, but others weren't so lucky. (LAT photo)Make that almost to perfection. Approaching the Turn Three hairpin at mid-race, Bourdais locked the McDonald's Ford-Lola’s brakes and got well out of shape, enabling Tracy to take a peak underneath. But the Canadian thought better of it.
“There was really no way to get around Sebastien on the track,” he said. “He made a very, very small mistake at the hairpin and locked up. There was really no way to get by. Really I just had to hope for a mistake or coming second.”
Not that Tracy’s drive was error free. He too bobbled, this time in the treacherous Turn Four, sliding wide, banging the wall and continuing on his way.
“I was pretty lucky,” he said. “That’s a place where it’s very easy to hit the wall. It was very slippery off line. I just missed the entrance a bit, turned in a bit too early. I had to like jog out to miss hitting the inside wall. When I did that I got off line. The car slid and touched the wall (but) it hit pretty flat on the wheel; didn’t catch it at an angle, didn’t tear at the wheel.”
Others were not so fortunate. Andrew Ranger hit another wall and retired with a broken engine mount. Jimmy Vasser crept into the pits with a wheel askew, but returned to action after a lengthy repair job to replace a bent wishbone. Similarly, both Team Australia cars of Alex Tagliani and Marcus Marshall visited the pits for repairs, with Tag alone able to continue.
The mechanical mayhem left Servia fending off the advances of birthday boy Justin Wilson, who was gifted with superb pit work by the RuSPORT crew that helped him climb from ninth on the grid to fourth. Dominguez, one of the “victims” of the quick RuSPORT pit stops was fifth from Glock and Cristiano da Matta, while Bremer and Wirdheim emerged in eighth and ninth and Tagliani circulated a subdued 10th, having lost four laps effecting repairs to his car.
When da Matta stuffed it in Turn Four on Lap 78, it set up a final full-course yellow and restart to perhaps alter the final running order. But Bourdais, home free on fuel, was not about to be caught and set a string of fastest laps to pull free from Tracy.
Servia was another matter however, as he finished with all fingers and toes crossed – and his mirrors filled with Wilson – after feeling some undetermined part of his car come adrift in the final going.
“Over the last five laps I was really, really scared because something went loose in the rear of my car,” he said. “I thought for sure (it) was going to break. Each time I was going over the rails, I was praying it was just going to stay together because every lap was getting worse.
“Under braking, I would have to turn the wheel towards one side. I really thought Wilson was going to get me, or just the car was going to break down. I really don’t know what happened, but I’m just glad it stayed together enough to finish.”
Truth be told, the eight others still driving at the finish probably echoed those thoughts.