Sebastien Bourdais couldn’t stop his car toward the end of the Champ Car Grand Prix of Houston.
Not a bad problem for a driver when he’s trying to win a race – unless he’s totally out of control.
But if the 28-year-old Frenchman was having car problems Sunday, he hid them well, winning in Houston for the second straight year and grabbing the inside track for his fourth consecutive Champ Car title.
“There was just no bite anymore on the brakes,” he said. “It wouldn’t slow down. I don’t know what happened. It was a weird feeling, very uncomfortable.”
Bourdais earned his 25th career win in his 62nd start, continuing his dominance of the circuit.
Good brakes or not, Bourdais decided to finish his second win of the season in style, turning his fastest lap (58.018 seconds) on his 93rd and final trip around the 1.69-mile street course next to Reliant Stadium.
Bourdais has won 14 of his past 24 starts. With his win Sunday, Bourdais overtook points leader Will Power in the standings. Power, who started on the pole, damaged the nose wing on his car three times and finished 11th.
Beyond his own car problems, Bourdais got lucky at the end.
Bourdais went for a pit stop on the 68th lap, while rookie Tristan Gommendy stayed on the track, gambling he wouldn’t have to stop again for fuel.
If a caution flag had come out, the drivers would have held their positions and Gommendy would have been able to save gas and cruise to victory.
But things went Bourdais’ way. The yellow never came and Gommendy ran out of gas on lap 87 as Bourdais slipped past him.
“I had the feeling where it’s either going to go our way and we were going to win it,” Bourdais said, “or it’s going to go his way and he’s going to win it. That’s racing, I guess.”
Bourdais cruised from there with rookie Graham Rahal, cqhis Newman/Haas/Lanigan teammate, protecting him in second place.Motorcycles: Mat Mladin completed a weekend sweep in the Honda Superbike Classic at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Ala., beating Suzuki teammate Ben Spies by 0.992 of a second in the 28-lap final. Michael Jordan’s team won its first AMA race when Aaron Yates won the superstock event.
