Sebastien Bourdais earns third straight win

The three-time defending series champion beat second-place Wilson by 13.537 seconds on the 1.964-mile (3.161-kilometer) road course at Portland International Raceway. Rookie Robert Doornbos finished third in the caution-free race.

Bourdais, who also won at Houston and Long Beach, also won at Portland in 2004. He has won 26 races during his career.

It was the 100th victory for the Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing team. The team was founded in 1982 by actor Paul Newman and entrepreneur Carl Haas. Their first win came in 1983 at Road America with driver Mario Andretti.

“This race unfolded like a dream,” Bourdais said.

Wilson said his car’s power leveled off and Bourdais was able to catch him.”

“It was just frustrating we couldn’t go any faster,” he said. “We were already at the maximum.”

It was Champ Car’s first use of a standing start, where drivers take off from a dead stop like in Formula One. Champ Car has traditionally used rolling starts.

Bourdais had expressed concerns about the start, fearing that if some cars stalled when drivers dropped their clutches, there could be accidents.

But the start, with cars set up in a graduated grid on the straightaway, went off smoothly. A bank of lights positioned over the starting line signaled the drivers — when the last of the red lights went out, the cars burst forward with a deafening roar.

Australian driver Will Power’s team cheered the start.

“I’m pretty happy that my bad visions didn’t happen,” Bourdais said.

There was talk that Champ Car might scrap the standing start if it was raining. In pouring rain Saturday for practice and qualifying, drivers complained that there was so much spray that they couldn’t see anything.

But the rain, except for a few drizzles, stayed away Sunday.

Bourdais started in the third spot and went on to lead 48 laps.

“That kid is quite a phenomenon,” Newman said of the French driver. “And he has a great crew, too.”

Wilson, in the No. 9 RSPORTS car, took the pole with a fast lap of 58 seconds flat on Friday. The Englishman finished second at Portland last year, and held the pole for the 2005 race.

Doornbos, the rookie points leader from Holland, started in the No. 2 spot.

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