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Bourdais sweeps to pole win at Houston
April 21st, 2007

Houston, TX (Sports Network) - Three-time Champ Car Series champion Sebastien Bourdais was fastest for the second straight day winning the pole for Sunday's Grand Prix of Houston. The No.1 Newman/Haas/Lanigan driver's time was 57.242 seconds (105.845 m.p.h.).

The pole earned Bourdais an additional championship point, his second of the weekend. It is his second consecutive pole victory and 27th of his career.

Starting alongside the Frenchman will be Will Power who posted a second-best time of 57.405 seconds around the 1.69-mile temporary street course. Power currently leads the championship after winning the season opener in Las Vegas and finishing third in Long Beach.

Justin Wilson (57.533) and Neel Jani (57.753) will make up row two.

Bourdais is the defending champion having beaten Paul Tracy in last year's race by 1.238 seconds. Tracy, the series' active wins leader who missed last week's race after a practice crash, is absent this week as well. Tracy's crash on Saturday morning left him with a compression fracture to his first lumbar vertebrae. Oriol Servia is once again substituting for Tracy. He was quite successful in his debut finishing second behind Bourdais. Servia will start fifth.

The race is scheduled to drop the green flag on Sunday at 3 p.m. (et).