Champ du Jour

After winning seven races and eight poles in 14 Champ Car starts, as Sebastien Bourdais did last year in winning the series championship, what does he do for an encore?

“Win as many as I can, that’s all I can do,” said the slender, bespectacled Frenchman from Le Mans who looks more like a young professor at the Sorbonne than a hard-nosed race car driver. “A perfect season would be impossible, but we’ll try what we can do to win every one.”

The quest for perfection starts today with the 31st Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, opening event of Champ Car’s second season as a successor to CART.

Bourdais, 26, will start fourth in today’s 81-lap race around the testy 1.97-mile course with its 11 turns. He qualified at 104.463 mph Saturday as two-time defending champion Paul Tracy took the pole with a 104.983-mph speed.

It was the first time in 16 races that Bourdais has not qualified third or better.

“I guess it had to happen sometime,” he said. “I was trying very hard and made a couple of mistakes. We’ll just try to have a good race tomorrow. If P4 [position four] is a bad day, I’ll take it.”

Going into the first race, Bourdais looks for a much more competitive season this year, noting the return of 2002 champion Cristiano da Matta from Formula One and the consistent pursuit of his Newman-Haas teammate, Bruno Junqueira, who qualified second at 104.737 mph.

“The most important person a driver faces is his teammate,” Bourdais said. “He is the one with the same equipment, the same tools. Against other drivers, there are variables that prevent direct comparison.

“And Bruno is not only good, he is hungry. He has been second three straight years, so close that he thinks he is ready to win.”

Junqueira, one of the many Brazilians at the top of racing charts, lost by 28 points to Bourdais last year, by 27 to Paul Tracy in 2003 and by 73 to Da Matta in 2002.

“I think he is right, it is my turn,” said Junqueira with a nod to his teammate.

“Cristiano’s return makes four champions in the field; that makes for a very healthy series,” Bourdais said. “We keep hearing that [Champ Car] is having problems, but as far as the drivers are concerned, it’s the best series around. I don’t know what will happen with open-wheel racing in the next three years, but I hope it fixes itself. Right now, I feel pretty good about where I am.”

One concern of the champion is that he had only two days of off-season practice before showing up for Long Beach.

“We were unlucky with weather when we tested at Sebring [Fla.] and Fontana, so both places we got only one day instead of two. It’s like everything is going a bit too fast here and I’m not feeling all that ready,” Bourdais said.

“Fortunately, we have a veteran team and we finished the year strong, so we have a good base line. Hopefully, everything is going to fall into place Sunday.”

Despite the success of Bourdais and the Newman-Haas team, winning the championship in 2002 with Da Matta as well as last year, it has not won at Long Beach since 1984 when Mario Andretti got the last of his three CART wins. He also won a Formula One in 1986.

Bourdais was third last year, behind Tracy and Junqueira, and was 16th in 2003, his first year in the series.

When Bourdais came to the Newman-Haas team three years ago as a replacement for Da Matta, who left to drive for Toyota in Formula One, he freely admitted that he was there to work his way into Formula One as Da Matta had done. After his dominant season last year, he expected to hear from Formula One teams, at least for a look-see with the Williams team.

Nothing happened.

“I thought for sure I would get a call for at least a test, but these days it seems you need to bring money to get your chance,” Bourdais said. “Formula One has become a series for the paid drivers and the paying drivers. Still, I am surprised I did not get a chance to prove what I could do.

“It’s not the first time Formula One has treated me that way. I would listen if I get a call, but I won’t get in a second-rate car. It doesn’t get you anywhere parading around with no chance to win, or even make the podium.”

It was after a lack of interest from Formula One teams in 2002 when Bourdais won the International F3000 championship, despite testing for the Arrows and Renault teams, that led to his accepting the Newman-Haas offer.

“My life is here in the United States now,” Bourdais said. “My girlfriend is in college at USF [University of Southern Florida] and I am building a house on the water in St. Petersburg. I still have friends in Le Mans, but when I go back, most of them are working and I do not feel at home there anymore.”

While at Daytona Beach, Fla., for the 24-hour race and to practice for an International Race of Champions during Speed Weeks, Bourdais developed an interest and curiosity for stock car racing.

“It is so different, I found it intriguing. I had never drafted with anyone before and it was quite an experience,” Bourdais said. “Those big cars make such a big hole in the air. The drivers are very good at what they do. It is so different from Champ Cars. We can make our cars go where we want it to go, in NASCAR you must go where the racing goes.

“The Champ Car is totally different, the shape, the weight, the handling, everything. At the start, the stock cars are door handle to door handle, bumper to bumper, for lap after lap. Nothing like we do. It was frustrating for me in the IROC because I didn’t get many laps before I got collected in an accident. I can’t wait for the next one in Texas.”

To be ready for the Texas race Friday night, he will fly there after today’s race and practice Monday, then fly to Portland, Ore., to test Wednesday and Thursday for a Champ Car race in June before returning to Texas.

Moving around has been his style since the Champ Car season ended in November. He drove in the SCORE Baja 1000 and finished third with Rhys Millen, who won Saturday’s pro-celebrity race; drove in the 24 Hours of Daytona with Paul Newman, Da Matta and Michael Brockman, and the 12 Hours of Sebring, in addition to his IROC race at Daytona.