Montreal, Aug 25: Mexico's Michel Jourdain grabbed his second CART win of the season at the Montreal CART Grand Prix on Sunday.
Mexico's Michel Jourdain grabbed his second CART win of the season at the Montreal CART Grand Prix on Sunday, beating Spaniard Oriol Servia by 1.277 seconds. Canada's Pat Carpentier finished third. The top three were all driving Lola Ford-Cosworth racers. But it was a bitterly disappointing day for polesitter, Alex Tagliani, a native of Montreal, who opened up a gap of about five seconds over Servia in the early stages until he had to make mandatory pit stops. His own Lola Ford-Cosworth failed to achieve the mileage of his rivals and he lost time in a lengthy refuelling stop, as well as spinning briefly off the track. Jourdain, who went into the pits on lap 60 needed little more than half the time for a partial tank full which put him back on the circuit ahead of Tagliani.


Jourdain, who took the lead on lap 66 of the 75 lap race and was never seriously challenged, said his Team Rahal tactics were to save fuel because he could not otherwise keep up with Tagliani's pace.


Tagliani went off the track trying to overtake compatriot and CART points leader, Paul Tracy, and although he recovered he lost the chance of his first CART win.


Tracy, who finished sixth, has a 28-point lead over Brazil's Bruno Junqueira, who finished out of the points. Jourdain lies third with five races to go.


Bureau Report