Bourdais eyes another victory

Sebastien Bourdais has mastered the 1.5-mile high speed oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and now the three-time reigning champion of the Champ Car World Series gets to put his mark on the streets of downtown Las Vegas.

The popular Frenchman for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing has to be the favorite to win Sunday's inaugural Vegas Grand Prix, which opens the 2007 Champ Car season.

Bourdais, 28, has won 23 events in his four years of racing in the series. That includes 2004 and 2005 victories at the speedway.

"(The speedway) was just flat all the way around, just very much like the (Indy Racing League) is doing these days, and we're not big fans of it," he said.

"I'm really happy that we moved to the downtown area. From what I've seen of the layout, it should be an exciting track, so I'm definitely looking forward to it."

The native of Le Mans, France, and resident of Tampa, Fla., still hopes to get a chance to compete in Formula One. His record should earn him a tryout; he's won 39 percent of the Champ Car races he's started and earned the pole 25 times.

This year, he's eager to defend his title while working to develop new teammate Graham Rahal, the 18-year-old son of Bobby Rahal.

The series opener has had teams working up to the last minute finalizing their driver rosters. Race officials say they expect 18 cars to participate in practice and qualifying Friday, when the 2.44-mile, 12-turn circuit is christened.

A major change this season is the implementation of the DP01 race car, which will continue to use Cosworth power.

The new car performed well in testing early this year, series officials said.

Built by Elan Motorsports in Braselton, Ga., it is the first new Champ Car model in seven years. The DP01 was designed to be lighter and more economical for teams to operate, while providing a new aerodynamics package designed to create more competitive racing.

The 16-event Champ Car schedule will compete exclusively on road and street courses again this year, with new events in China, Holland and Belgium.

Three Las Vegas residents will be involved in the race.

Paul Tracy, the 2003 series champion, returns to Forsythe Championship Racing, and Alex Tagliani will drive for Rocketsports.

Veteran driver Jimmy Vasser, who has yet to officially announce his retirement from driving, is co-owner of the PKV Racing team, which will field cars for European rookies Tristan Gommendy and Neel Jani.

Tracy will start his 17th season in the series. The Canadian native has won 30 races and 25 poles; both are bests for active drivers in U.S. open-wheel racing.

Tagliani has one win in eight seasons and is one of the most popular drivers in the series. This year, the Rocketsports team will work in association with RuSPORT Racing, which returns series runner-up Justin Wilson of Sheffield, England.

Rocketsports -- owned by American Paul Gentilozzi, who holds the record for victories as a driver in the Trans-Am Series -- and RuSport each ran two cars the past few seasons but have scaled back to one apiece. They will work jointly on data acquisition and race preparation.

Tracy's teammate this year is popular Hispanic driver Mario Dominguez, a five-year veteran with 78 consecutive starts, including two victories.

Gommendy and Jani are two of eight rookies-- nearly half the field -- slated to be in the Champ Car starting lineup.

Three drivers were announced last week, including Rahal, whose father won the Indianapolis 500 in 1986 and owns a team in the rival IRL IndyCar series.

Dan Clarke and Robert Doornbos, another rookie, were named to drive for the new Minardi Team USA.