Mexico Race Thread (RACE spoilers)

[marcus]

I gotta say , I thought Power had it , he was holding sebastien well until a lap or so before the pitstop and then I realised (maybe Bourdais did too) that he had an extra gear and my heart sank.

well done Sebastien was trully an amazing drive , the guy is fantastic in a champcar and in a way im glad he is off to f1 as well , but boy what a driver

[luke]

Originally Posted by JohnSSC

Sarcasm Alert!

What a Race! The start was a real attention-getter with 3 cars stalling and 2 of those deep-frying the clutch. We were treated to that extra Power-to-Pass, which, as the commentators happily pointed out: "Allowed cars with bad setups to pass the faster cars." That is what I look for in racing: teams that work their butts off getting their tails kicked by less industrious drivers/teams simply because they can push the Happy Button.

Beekhuis was masterful in describing (confidently) Wilson's "misfire" as an electrical problem rather than the fuel pickup problem it turned out to be.

The tension that built while they spent a ridiculous amount of time cleaning up an end plate was just what Champ Car needs! If a contrived finish is NASCAR's forte, then this was a masterpiece in how not to do it. Will Bourdais have enough P 2 P (sounds like a Flomax commercial) to hold off Power's P 2 P advantage? Stay tuned! Stay tuned some more as we wait, and wait, and...

Bourdais made Power look like an amateur on the restart - either that or Power fell asleep waiting for the Mammoth Task of finding and removing an endplate to be completed. Rumor has it that the endplate had turned mean and actually attacked two of the corner workers requiring the Police to be brought in to subdue it.

Kudos to Rick Benjamin and Beekhuis for coming up with the nick name of "Suitcase" Servia to put a whimsical spin on Servia's attempt to drive for every team in CC in a single year.

Rumor has it Legge has an opportunity to go to DTM next season. If she is smart, she will jump on it with both feet. The beer is better there and likely she could land with a team that has actual engineers and mechanics. Wilson will be the Master of All He Surveys if he goes to NHL, as I think they are using a completely different car than anyone else and if I hear the announcers say: "Bobby D" one more time I'll puke.

Otherwise, this was the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. Thank God I didn't need to take a nap. I can see why KK and GF found better things to do...

Going to watch the replay John?

[JohnSSC]

Originally Posted by luke

Going to watch the replay John?

I must have missed something (perhaps a smilie or emoticon or something?) but you quoted my entire post and asked if I am going to watch the replay? Not sure if this meets the definition of a true non-sequitur...

In all seriousness I taped the race to catch the bits I missed, especially the restart at the end when Seb made everyone look like pikers. It is likely though that I will only watch the replay if I am fighting insomnia at some point...watching it once was quite enough...

[D.R.T.]

Quite a good race.

Bourdais showed why he is a 4 time champion. Good to see some emotion from him aswell as it showed how much these championships and ChampCar have meant to him.

Great drive by Servia aswell.

[djb]

well John , I thought your bit was rather funny , it summed up the race for me as well!

"Suitcase Servia" and "Bobby D" man o man, this frat-house-mentality of giving nicknames really gets on my nerves, I find it very immature and well, like I said, frathouse-ish, its embarressing.

anyway, my gripes over about that, yup Monsieur Bourdais showed how good he is, it'll be fun to watch and root for him to do his best (and his cars best) next year in F1.

Servia really has shown his talent this year hasnt he?


cheers all

[Phoenix1]

He had problems with his car so went on on fresh tyres to get a point for fastest lap and used something like 20 or 30 seconds of boost on the lap. If Power had won the race the one point would of made a championship position difference!

Originally Posted by alonso11

just missed the race on Eurosport2, happy for Bourdais.

But tell me one thing, Dornbos did the fastest lap, over 2 sec faster than Bourdais'?? 1.3 sec faster than anyone else's?? On lap 8 too?? What was that all about? Have the track condition gone so bad after lap 8? Or did Robert indeed go crazy in that lap?

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Really quite a boring race. Only fun part was Servia making some nice passes to get 3rd, but was that caution really warranted? Was quite fun to see Minardi repair Doornbos' car and send him out for that Banzai lap though.

[JohnSSC]

Thanks, djb!

I think Servia showed his ability and what a travesty it has been for him to get shuffled around like he has. A quality driver he is and on his day he is at least the equal of Wilson.

Yeah, the nickname thing has to go...

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by JohnSSC

Thanks, djb!

I think Servia showed his ability and what a travesty it has been for him to get shuffled around like he has. A quality driver he is and on his day he is at least the equal of Wilson.

Yeah, the nickname thing has to go...

Thankfully Eurosport has Jeremy Shaw and James Hinchcliffe. They're not the best, but they're ok. US commentators as a whole are really quite rubbish.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by JohnSSC

I think Servia showed his ability and what a travesty it has been for him to get shuffled around like he has. A quality driver he is and on his day he is at least the equal of Wilson.

A quality driver no doubt, his qualifying laps at Surfers were amazing. Interesting to see the Pay By Touch branding still on the PKV car even after Gommeddy's departure.

David Phillips has mentioned rumours of PKV and Forsythe looking to expand to 3 in 2008, so Servia is would very much be in contention here.

That said we have not seen the best of Wilson yet, and I think when push comes to shove Wilson has it over Servia. Both very likeable drivers though.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by D.R.T.

A quality driver no doubt, his qualifying laps at Surfers were amazing. Interesting to see the Pay By Touch branding still on the PKV car even after Gommeddy's departure.

David Phillips has mentioned rumours of PKV and Forsythe looking to expand to 3 in 2008, so Servia is would very much be in contention here.

That said we have not seen the best of Wilson yet, and I think when push comes to shove Wilson has it over Servia. Both very likeable drivers though.

Pay by Touch was never Gommendy's sponsor. It is a paying sponsor PKV sourced. It pays enough AGR went after them for sponsorship in the irl.

[gomick]

Originally Posted by djb

Servia really has shown his talent this year hasnt he?

i thought he out drove tracy when they where team-mates & it suprised me that he never got a drive after finishing #2 in 2005 - what ever happened to his telefonica sponsorship , was a good colourful paintjob too

[D.R.T.]

One rumour doing the rounds is CDW in talks with Forsythe Racing regarding the sponsorship of one of the teams cars, with Justin WIlson in toe. IF, this rumour advances to any future fruition Servia might not be to far off a NHL drive.

[stradlin21]

it was a terribly dull race, poor mrs stradlin fell to sleep!

i myself stayed awake but wasn't much entertained

good to get this season out of way. we'll see if some of these supposed rumours actually come to fruition but I doubt it myself

roll on 2008

[Leighton Irwin]

I taped the race and it took me 2 nights to watch it. I kept falling asleep the 1st night. I thought the camera work poor with jumping from car to car with no apparent continuity especialy early in the race. Again early in the race the US commentators were too busy prattling on about anything but what was happening on track at that time. Maybe with the jumpy camera work they were puzzled too.
Then I get it on Score TV so there is the constant sports tape running across the bottom of the screen which along with the tape at the top covers about a quarter of the screen.
At least Score put the race on when they said they would for a change.