Headlines

CHAMP Car firebrand Paul Tracy yesterday began thawing the icy relationship he has with reigning series champion Sebastien Bourdais.

 On the eve of this weekend's penultimate race of the season, Canadian Tracy offered a verbal olive branch to his bitter rival.

Asked if he hoped Bourdais would stay in Champ Cars in 2007, Tracy said he hoped the Frenchman achieved his dream of getting a Formula One drive.

"If he (Bourdais) wants to be here that is great," said Tracy.

"I know that he wants to get to Formula One and I think he deserves the chance to be there. He has done everything that there is to do here. I think he has done it all.

"However, the longer he stays in Champ Cars the less likely it will be that he will get to Formula One.

"So as a series we would like to see him stay, but it would be nice to see him get an opportunity."

The platitudes from Tracy are a stark contrast to the rocky relationship the pair have shared in recent seasons. The verbal jousts sometimes sparked on-rack rumbles and there was even a physical confrontation when the pair came together in Denver in August.

Both have acknowledged that their intense personal duel comes mostly from their own highly competitive natures. Tracy won the series in 2003 and since then has taken a back seat while Bourdais took the crown in 2004 and 2005 and has an all-but-unassailable lead in the series this year.

"We don't have the greatest of relationships on or off the track," said Tracy in a fit of understatement yesterday. "He is a great driver, fantastic at what he does. He is the measuring stick that everyone wants to beat."

But the rose-coloured glasses could not stay on all day.

"My attitude and AJ's (Tracy's teammate AJ Allmendinger) attitude is that we are probably the only two guys in the series that are not going to get rolled over by him.

"He (Bourdais) seems to have his way with everybody else. But I am not the type and AJ is not the type to just roll over for him, and that is where the problems arise.

"He thinks he should have things a certain way and I am not prepared to give that.

"That is just racing and competition. I don't change for anybody and we can argue and bicker back and forwards in the media, but at the end of the day I am going to race him as hard as anybody.

"He has done a great job and to win three championships in a row makes him the measuring stick. He drives great and if he continues to stay in the championship he is the man to beat."

Bourdais accepted the offered olive branch.

"The truth is we have a lot of respect for each other and, yes, we have had our share of incidents," said the Frenchman.

However, he said a change soon to F1 was unlikely.

"The opportunity in F1 I don't see happening right now," he said.

"The conditions required of me are not acceptable. They want me to be a test driver for a year with no guarantee of anything.

"I don't think so. I have too much to give up here for a maybe. It is frustrating, but I know that this is the way the game is played.

"There are tons of very good drivers that don't get opportunities and I was hoping not to be one of those. It is not something you have control over. You have to be positive. You also have to be content with what you have.

"How many guys would kill just to be in the position I am in, in a great team and making big money."

Tracy, 37, who this year signed on for a further five years with Forsythe Racing, has had a year of frustration and said he is fortunate to be in fourth position on the drivers championship ladder.

"It has not been a good season," he said. "We are fourth, but overall I have not been happy with how we have been going.

"But we are still fourth and it could have been a lot worse."

The Champ Cars hit the track for the first time today with practice this morning and the first of the qualifying sessions from 1.50pm.

 

Gold Coast Publications Pty Ltd Copyright © June 2006