Friday, April 20, 2007 Grand Prix of Houston – JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park, Houston, Texas Round 3 of 14 in the Champ Car World Series 2007 Season McDONALD'S® DRIVER BOURDAIS ON PROVISIONAL POLE FOR THE GRAND PRIX OF HOUSTON; MEDI | ZONE DRIVER RAHAL THIRD 1st: Sebastien Bourdais 58.998 / 103.789 mph 2nd: Will Power 58.890 / 102.883 mph 3rd: Graham Rahal 58.376 / 102.695 mph Sebastien Bourdais, No. 1 McDonald’s Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone¨ “The first run was difficult, the grip wouldn’t come at first. We were going quicker and quicker and felt like we would have needed to extend the run but we were running low on fuel so we had to pit. It’s always great to have pit out and on the second run, we used it to our advantage. All the credit goes to Graham and the entire team. In Long Beach we did a good job overall as a team to earn our pit location here. The McDonald’s team did a great job again this morning at turning things around. The baseline wasn’t all that great for this circuit but we made some improvement and I felt much more comfortable this afternoon. It paid off because the setup wasn’t really that much different but it’s the small details make it a whole different lap at the end.” FAST FACTS: Will be his second race here. Last year he recovered from losing provisional pole on Thursday due to disqualification (under weight), started qualified fifth and won the event. He charged to the front and pressured race leader Dominguez into a mistake. Led a total of 33 laps and set the fastest race lap to increase his lead over second place to 18 points after Round 2 of 15. Was the second of four consecutive wins last season...Became the first open wheel driver to win three consecutive championships since Ted Horn accomplished the feat from 1946-1948 and only the second in the 98 year history of the sport…He has the rare opportunity to win four consecutive championships this year if he can again capture the Vanderbilt Cup, which would extend his run that began in 2004. Bourdais would be making history as no Champ Car driver has ever won four straight championships. Four in a row is very rare in professional sports in fact it has never been done in either NASCAR or NFL and it hasn’t been accomplished in the last twenty years in the NBA, NHL or MLB. Graham Rahal, No. 2 Medi | Zone Cosworth/DP01/Bridgestone: "Vegas was pretty difficult for not only myself but the entire team. Sebastien as well. Then we went to Long Beach and finally started to get a little bit of our rhythm back. Then here is seems to be better so far. I really have to give all the credit I can to the whole Medi | Zone crew because we’ve worked so hard. After having a couple of crashes in Vegas, then Long Beach was a tight turnaround but they did it, and coming here. Fortunately we didn’t have any problems in Long Beach so that made it a little bit easier. We’ll just hope it continues. I certainly think they made some improvements (to the track). It’s a bit different obviously because the speed you are carrying in the Atlantic cars through the back straight, it was pretty easy to run whatever line you wanted to run. These things are a bit different, or at least for me. The bumps seem to be a lot better on the back straight and in the chicane and some of the other corner changes that they made, I tend to like. I think the track is headed in the right direction and I hope the race is as well.” FAST FACTS: Will be his second race here and first in a Champ Car. Started third in the Atlantics race here last year and was in second place when he collided with Raphael Matos while attempting to take the lead with three laps to go and finished 15th…First test in a Lola Champ Car was for the team in Sebring, Fla. on September 13-14, 20006. Also ran in Homestead, Fla. and Houston in 2006. Tested the DP01 Panoz in Sebring, Houston and Laguna Seca in 2007. .. Rahal finished second in the 2006 Champ Car Atlantic championship after a title hunt that concluded in the season finale. Led 129 laps to champion Pagenaud’s 31. He earned a series-high five wins (42 percent), four poles (33 percent) and six podium finishes (50 percent) in the 12 events and at 17 years old was the youngest race winner in series history (Monterrey, Mexico on 5-21-06). ONE WIN FOR NHLR IN HOUSTON: NHLR competed in the Houston street race from 1998 to 2001 and their best result was a third place finish by Michael Andretti in 1999 after he started 11th. Carl Haas was the CEO of the entity that promoted the races from ‘98 to ‘01. Last year, Bourdais won from a fifth place start while Junqueira started second but finished 10th after a fuel miscalculation. This year the team will compete here as Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. Mike Lanigan is the promoter of the event. The morning practice session will take place from 10:00-11:15 AM CT while final qualifying will take place from 1:30-2:30 PM CT.