2007 Gran Premio Tecate - Race

Race

Pos No Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 1 Sébastien Bourdais N/H/L Racing 64 1:45:02.885 2 32
2 5 Will Power Team Australia 64 +1.906 1 29
3 22 Oriol Servià PKV Racing 64 +3.364 4 25
4 2 Graham Rahal N/H/L Racing 64 +7.346 7 23
5 3 Paul Tracy Forsythe Racing 64 +8.593 8 21
6 15 Simon Pagenaud Team Australia 64 +9.638 6 19
7 19 Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne Racing 64 +15.823 12 17
8 28 Mario Domínguez Pacific Coast Motorsports 64 +16.077 15 16
9 21 Neel Jani PKV Racing 64 +16.199 11 13
10 9 Justin Wilson RuSPORT 64 +16.954 5 11
11 29 Alex Figge Pacific Coast Motorsports 63 + 1 Lap 17 10
12 34 Nelson Philippe Conquest Racing 63 + 1 Lap 13 9
13 8 Alex Tagliani Rocketsports Racing 62 + 2 Laps 14 8
14 7 David Martínez Forsythe Racing 58 + 6 Laps 10 7
15 19 Katherine Legge Dale Coyne Racing 56 Mechanical 16 6
16 14 Robert Doornbos Minardi Team USA 12 Mechanical 3 6
17 4 Dan Clarke Minardi Team USA 0 Mechanical 9 4

The final race of the season got off to a ragged start as Oriol Servià, Nelson Philippe, and Alex Tagliani all stalled on the grid. At the front, Will Power held off Sébastien Bourdais at the start and took charge of the field behind the pace car. A potential fight for second place in the championship standings between Justin Wilson and Robert Doornbos was blunted when Doornbos' car developed a clutch problem. Doornbos' mechanics valiantly worked to fix the problem in the hopes of securing the point for fastest lap, and after 51 minutes of work, Doornbos did exactly that, securing his third place in the championship over Will Power.

At the front of the race Bourdais was working with a bit of a disadvantage for the race because he and teammate Graham Rahal were docked 22 seconds off the alloted 75 seconds of Power-to-Pass time after they laid rubber down on their grid spots making practice starts during the Sunday morning session. But Bourdais was able to get the power down coming out of the Peraltada corner before Power could. This slight handling difference gave Bourdais a critical speed advantage at the end of the long main straight. Bourdais easily passed Power on the main straight on lap 24 and then held off the Australian for the rest of the race, even after a late race yellow flag tightened up the field.

Bourdais' victory in his final Champ Car race before heading off to Formula One for the 2008 season was his 31st overall, putting him into a tie for 6th on the all-time Champ Car victory list with Paul Tracy and Al Unser, Jr.

Highlighting the race behind the Bourdais and Power was the performance of Oriol Servià who recovered from the stall on the grid and fought through the entire field all the way to third place. His performance allowed him to leapfrog from ninth to sixth place in the final championship standings.

Read more about this topic:  2007 Gran Premio Tecate

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