Newman/Haas Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais (#1 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) became the first driver since Ted Horn (1946-48) to win three consecutive Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford championships today in the Lexmark Indy 300 at Surfers Paradise.

Bourdais locked up the championship on Lap 20 of today’s event when A.J. Allmendinger (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) had race-ending contact with the Turn Three fence, ending his title chase, and giving the championship to Bourdais.

The Frenchman, who won the 2004 and 2005 championships to lead into the 2006 season, currently leads the series in wins, poles, money won and laps led. The race is still ongoing at the time of this release, a full race recap and championship follow-up will come at the conclusion of today’s event.

Sebastien Bourdais:

“Once A.J. had his problem, it was all for the win because we really didn’t have anything to fight for anymore. It was win or nothing. Then after that, after the incident with Will, and we decide we were going to have to make it on the three stop, it was kind of make it to the finish. At some point I made a small mistake in the first chicane, and it wasn’t my time to try and contest him because he made it around on the outside and it was just too risky. So I just set him around. And then we never knew if I was going to make it or not because the yellow came out. And during that yellow, during the pit stop, Paul ruined Will’s race, because at that point Will’s car was damaged. And on the restart he wasn’t as quick as he had been the race before. And I tried to take off time. Wasn’t quite close enough. But coming after the second chicane, I had a very good run. I pushed it past and made the move on him and he squeezed me just a little bit and I don’t know what happened, but the car started to burn really, really hard over the bumps in the middle of the track, and as soon as I touched the brakes, the right front locked and I was never going to stop the car. So I just bailed out. And unfortunately Will either thought I was going to make the corner or I don’t know what. He turned and we made a small contact, which had no incident on my car but apparently damaged his. And my race was ruined from there on because we had to make it on the three‑stop, and you know it was just going downhill from there. But in the meantime, we have to stay positive because it’s probably, you know, it’s definitely a historical day for the series and for my McDonald’s team.”

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