The 2006 Lexmark Indy 300 was a Champ Car World Series motor race that was held on 21 October 2006, at the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Queensland, Australia in front of 101,066 spectators. It was the 13th and penultimate round of the 2006 Champ Car World Series and the 16th running of the event. Nelson Philippe of CTE Racing - HVM won the 59-lap race from the fifth position. Rocketsports Racing driver Mario Domínguez finished second and Team Australia's Alex Tagliani took third.
Will Power posted the fastest timed laps of both qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday and earned his first career pole position; it was the first pole for an Australian driver in the series since 1981. He pulled away from the other drivers and led the first 13 laps before making a pit stop. His performance was later hindered because of a lap-28 collision with Sébastien Bourdais. With varying pit stop strategies between teams, Jan Heylen, Charles Zwolsman Jr., Oriol Servià, Philippe, Paul Tracy, Domínguez, and Antônio Pizzonia all inherited the lead for at least one lap. After Pizzonia's stop, Philippe held off a hard charge from Domínguez to take his first (and only) career victory, becoming the youngest winner in Champ Car World Series history at 20 years, two months, and 29 days old. There were five caution flags and eight lead changes during the race.
Entering the race, Bourdais, A. J. Allmendinger, and Justin Wilson were mathematically eligible to win the Drivers' Championship. However, Wilson was eliminated from contention when he suffered a wrist injury from contacting a tyre wall in a pre-qualifying practice session. During the race, Allmendinger crashed into a barrier on lap 19. These two incidents, coupled with Bourdais' eighth-place finish, ensured Bourdais the Drivers' Championship for the third consecutive year, a feat which had not been achieved since Ted Horn did so from 1946 to 1948.
Background
The 2006 Lexmark Indy 300 was the 13th and penultimate round of the 2006 Champ Car World Series and the only race of the season to be held outside of the Americas. The 16th running of the event dating back to 1991, it was confirmed to be included in the Champ Car World Series' 2006 schedule in August 2005 and was held at the 12-turn Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Queensland, Australia on 21 October 2006. The V8 Supercars, V8 Utes, Aussie Racing Cars, and Carrera Cup hosted support races that same weekend. Tyre supplier Bridgestone brought two types of dry tyres (the harder-tread Standard and the softer-tread Alternate) and grooved-tread rain tyres.
Heading into the race, Sébastien Bourdais held the lead in the Drivers' Championship with 338 points, 58 ahead of second-placed A. J. Allmendinger and 69 more than third-placed Justin Wilson. Paul Tracy was fourth on 184 points, while Nelson Philippe's 182 points gave him the fifth position in the standings. Because a maximum of 70 points were available over the season's last two races, only the top-three drivers — Bourdais, Allmendinger, and Wilson — mathematically had a chance to win the championship. Bourdais needed to finish ninth or better to clinch his third successive title, no matter where Allmendinger or Wilson finished. Though he hoped to back up his win the previous year, Bourdais simply hoped to have a peaceful weekend: "I'd be happy to repeat last year's race where we clinched the championship with a win, but I just hope we enjoy ourselves, that is our main focus."
Three driver changes occurred prior to the race. Antônio Pizzonia replaced Tõnis Kasemets in Rocketsports Racing's 18 car, marking his first start in the series since he finished 11th in the Champ Car Grand Prix de Montreal in August despite issues with his team's radio communications. Andreas Wirth, who won two races and finished third in the 2006 Atlantic Championship standings, made his Champ Car World Series debut with Dale Coyne Racing, taking the seat of Juan Cáceres. For the remainder of the season, series debutant Ryan Briscoe joined RuSPORT in their secondary No. 10 car, which they fielded for the first time since its primary driver, 2002 series champion Cristiano da Matta, suffered life-threatening injuries in a testing crash at Road America two months prior. Briscoe had competed in several racing series in 2006, including the IRL IndyCar Series, A1 Grand Prix, and the Rolex Grand Am Series' 24 Hours of Daytona. He was one of two Australian drivers that took part in the Lexmark Indy 300, along with Will Power.
Practice and qualifying
Friday, 19 October Two practice sessions were held prior to the race on Sunday, one 75-minute session on Friday and one 60-minute session on Saturday. Bourdais set the fastest lap of the session after the checkered flag was flown with a time of 1 minute and 33.441 seconds, beating Alex Tagliani, Wilson, Power, and Tracy. Wilson failed to post a quicker lap when he applied the brakes too late in turn one and stalled, as did Allmendinger in turn three earlier in the session. Two red flags paused the session: the first was for Wirth skidding into a tyre barrier and the second was for Tracy slamming into a left-side wall at the chicane in turn seven after one of his tyres punctured.
Two qualifying sessions were held on Friday and Saturday afternoon. Each session was divided into three segments; the first was a 15-minute preliminary practice session, the second was a 10-minute break, and the third was 30-minute open qualifications. At least 20 minutes of the qualifications were required to be held under green flag conditions, and the segment was allowed to be extended until the 20-minute requirement was met. The drivers' fastest overall time of the two sessions would determine their starting position. The fastest driver(s) at the end of the qualifying sessions were ensured a front-row starting position and earned one championship point.
Allmendinger was the fastest driver of the first preliminary practice segment at 1 minute and 33.420 seconds, with Bourdais in second, Mario Domínguez in third, Philippe in fourth, and Oriol Servià in fifth. The session was stopped when Briscoe crashed into the wall at the turn-two chicane and was assisted out of his car by track marshals, while Jan Heylen's car came to a standstill. Wilson also made slight contact with a tire wall on the inside of the chicane, which caused the handlebars of his steering wheel to slip out of his hands and sprain his right wrist. The Champ Car medical staff forced him not to partake in the qualifying session, thus preventing him from potentially gaining a championship point and eliminating him from championship contention.
Power set the fastest time of the Friday qualifying session, held under sunny skies, at 1 minute and 31.403 seconds and earned the provisional pole position, much to the delight of the Australian spectators. Because of the qualifying procedure, Power was guaranteed to start on the front row for the race, becoming the first Australian driver to do so in the history of the Lexmark Indy 300. Bourdais, in second, was 0.371 seconds slower; during an on-track run, he experienced a tyre lock-up as he made an adjustment in his cockpit which forced him off-course. The cars that he let by were slower than him and impended him from recording a faster lap. Bruno Junqueira took third while driving on the Standard tyres. As he ran with his Alternates, he clipped the tyre wall in turn seven and bent his steering column. Servià took fourth, but his last lap was nullified by a red flag with two minutes remaining that was caused by fifth-place qualifier Allmendinger, who crashed in the chicane with two minutes left. The top-ten positions were completed by Phillipe, Dan Clarke, Tagliani, Domínguez, and Pizzonia; Andrew Ranger, Haylen, Charles Zwolsman Jr., and Wirth, who caused a red flag halfway through the session when he stalled, occupied the next four positions. Tracy's team unloaded a spare car, but an oil leak prevented Tracy from driving it during qualifying. Along with Wilson and Briscoe, who did not qualify because of their practice incidents, Katherine Legge was also sidelined because she suffered engine issues that her team was unable to resolve in time.
After the session, it was announced that Wilson had suffered a broken metacarpal bone in his practice crash. His team, RuSPORT, resultantly withdrew him from the race.
Saturday, 20 October Allmendinger led the second practice session on Saturday morning with a 1 minute, 32.929 second-lap, while his Forsythe Championship Racing teammate Tracy took second. The Newman/Haas Racing pair of Junqueira and Bourdais was third and fourth, respectively, and Pizzonia was fifth-quickest. The session was held under overcast skies and sporadic rainfall. Wirth stalled his car after skidding off-course and lost eight minutes of on-track time for prompting a red flag. With twenty minutes left in the session, Legge caused the second stoppage when she slid into a tire barrier. Briscoe spun in turn 12, causing the third and final red flag with less than six minutes left.
After the session, a larger rain shower fell over the circuit, but dissipated by the time the second pre-qualifying practice segment began. Junqueira was quickest in the session at 1 minute and 34.162 seconds; Allmendinger, Power, Phillipe, and Servià rounded out the top-five. The session was put on hold halfway through when Pizzonia crashed into a tyre wall in the twelfth corner. Domínguez, Pizzonia's Rocketsports Racing teammate, simultaneously went off-track in turn six and refired his car with help from track marshals.
The second qualifying session was held under partly cloudy conditions. Many drivers set lap times early in the session in anticipation of rain, which ultimately never came. Power only began his qualifying attempt with eight minutes left in the session. His last lap, timed at 1 minute and 31.839 seconds, earned him his first career pole position. It was the first time that an Australian driver won the pole for a Champ Car World Series race since Geoff Brabham in the 1981 Los Angeles Times 500. Immediately after Bourdais set the session's top time (1:31.536), he hit a tyre bundle to the right of the kerb in turn one and crashed hard into the left-side wall. Because the red flag was issued for his incident, his time was erased. However, he still started in second on account of his fastest time from the Friday qualifying session. The placement of the tyre bundle near the kerb prompted criticism from Bourdais, Tracy, Wilson, and others after the session.
Tracy led for most of the qualifying session, but his guaranteed front-row position was denied from him when Power set his quick time, 0.120 seconds faster than Tracy; he was thus lined up in third place. Junqueira took fourth, Phillipe fifth, and Servià sixth. Allmendinger's time of 1:31.405 at the session's end, which would have placed him second place, was quickly negated because it was completed during a red flag period caused by Legge spinning in turn four, dropping him to seventh as a result. Clarke, Tagliani, and Domínguez took the remaining positions in the top ten, and Briscoe, Ranger, Pizzonia, Heylen, Zwolsman, Legge, and Wirth completed the starting grid for the race.
Qualifying classification