The 2007 Grand Prix of Houston was a Champ Car World Series motor race held on April 22, 2007, at the JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park in Houston, Texas. It was the third round of the 2007 Champ Car World Series and the sixth running of the event. Held over a set duration of 1 hour and 45 minutes, the 93-lap race was won by Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver Sébastien Bourdais. His teammate Graham Rahal finished second and was the youngest driver in series history to earn a podium finish, while Robert Doornbos came in third for Minardi Team USA.
Bourdais set the fastest lap time during Saturday's qualifying session, but did not win the pole position because it was ruled that he had blocked Will Power during one of his flying laps. His lap time was resultantly negated, giving Power the pole. On the first lap of the race, however, Power fell to third place, while Bourdais gave up the lead to Justin Wilson after bypassing a chicane. Bourdais then overtook Wilson at the chicane on lap 14 and remained unchallenged until lap 68, when Tristan Gommendy, whose pit stop strategy differed from that of the leaders, assumed the top position after Bourdais made his final stop. Gommendy hoped that a caution flag would be issued to allow him to save fuel, but it ultimately never materialized, and his car ran out of fuel on lap 86. Bourdais led the rest of the way to achieve his 25th career win and his second of the season.
With his victory, Bourdais claimed the lead in the Drivers' Championship standings, while Power dropped to second place because of several incidents throughout the race which hindered his performance. This was the last Champ Car World Series race at Houston because of the series' 2008 merger with the IndyCar Series, which later played host to the event beginning in 2013.
Background
The 2007 Grand Prix of Houston was first confirmed to be included in the Champ Car World Series' 2007 schedule in September 2006. It was the third of 14 open-wheel races for the season, the first race outside of the Western United States, and the sixth annual edition of the event. The race was held on April 22, 2007; for the second consecutive year, it took place at the JAGFlo Speedway at Reliant Park, a 10-turn, street circuit, in Houston, Texas, United States. The race reverted back to its original Sunday afternoon start after the 2006 event was run on Saturday night. Tire supplier Bridgestone brought two types of dry-condition tires (the more durable, black-sidewall "Primary" and the faster, red-sidewall "Alternate") and rain tires.
Heading into the race, Will Power led the Drivers' Championship with 59 points, followed by second-place Alex Tagliani with 44. Sébastien Bourdais, who was the defending race winner, trailed Power by 19 points, while Bruno Junqueira and Robert Doornbos rounded out the top-five with 36 and 35 points, respectively. After crashing out of the season-opening Vegas Grand Prix, Bourdais rebounded by winning from the pole position at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. Bourdais said that the win built momentum for the team, which he hoped to carry on to Houston. He was also unbothered by the season's first three races being held within three successive weekends: "When I was in Europe I used to race six of seven weekends in a row between the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the month of June with F3000 and the FIA GT and other races. These three races in a row are definitely bringing me back in the day."
There were 17 cars entered for the race which were fielded by 10 different teams. All cars used the Panoz DP01 chassis and Cosworth engines. One team changed drivers ahead of the race. Paul Tracy was expected to be sidelined for three months after he suffered a fractured vertebra in a practice crash at Long Beach. Though his recovery process was quicker than initially expected, Champ Car medical director Dr. Terry Trammell advised him to wait until the season's next round, the Grand Prix of Portland in June, to race again in order to avoid worsening his injury in case of another crash. In the meantime, Oriol Servià stood in for Tracy again following a second-place result at Long Beach. Tracy's teammate, Mario Domínguez, had an uncertain future with Forsythe Championship Racing, as their contract expired after the Houston race and their relationship was rumored to have soured when Domínguez crashed at Long Beach and quickly left the circuit.
A point of concern that many drivers had about the JAGFlo Speedway was its bumpy track surface. During the race weekend in 2006, numerous drivers complained that the bumps were worse than in the San Jose Street Circuit, which featured a tramway track that cars were forced to drive over during the 2005 Grand Prix of San Jose. To improve the circuit, a chicane was added in the second turn and sections of the stadium's parking lot used for the circuit were paved in concrete slabs; however, the slabs did not fit together seamlessly, causing the track to remain bumpy. Doornbos said of the JAGFlo Speedway: "I just walked a lap around the track and what also really strikes me is that there are absolutely no traces of motorsport to be seen, as if no one has ever raced here before."
Practice and qualifying
Friday Two 75-minute practice sessions were held prior to the race on Sunday, one on Friday and one on Saturday. The first session was led by Power with a 59.417-second lap; his teammate, Simon Pagenaud, came in second place, almost a tenth of a second slower. Bourdais, third-quickest, was two tenths of a second off of the Team Australia drivers' pace and was followed by RSPORTS teammates Justin Wilson and Tagliani. With 20 minutes left in the session, Servià spun on two consecutive laps at the turn-two chicane and stalled his engine the second time, which brought out the red flag. He was thus forced to sit out eight minutes of the session for causing a stoppage. The session came to an early end due to a spin by Katherine Legge.
The race's starting grid was determined by one 60-minute qualifying session on Friday and another on Saturday. As per Champ Car rules, each session was split into three segments: the first was open practice for 15 minutes, the second was a 10-minute break, and the third was open qualifications, in which drivers were allotted at least 20 minutes of track time under green-flag conditions. Each driver was required to complete no more than 15 timed laps during the session. The fastest driver(s) of each session were guaranteed to start on the grid's front row and awarded one championship point.
Tagliani was fastest in the first preliminary practice session with a time of 59.569 seconds, besting the times of Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing drivers Bourdais and Graham Rahal, Pagenaud, and Wilson. The session was paused towards the end when a bottle of liquid was thrown onto the track, after which Legge spun and barely avoided hitting a tire barrier. Bourdais set the fastest time of Friday afternoon's qualifying session, held under sunny skies, at 58.376 seconds, beating second-place Power by over half a second. Power's best time was nullified because Champ Car officials determined that he had blocked Wilson. Rahal qualified third, ahead of Wilson and Tagliani, who both opted to save their Alternate tires for Saturday. Servià's team discovered and alleviated minor mechanical issues in his car during the morning practice session and he provisionally took sixth, with Neel Jani, Pagenaud, Junqueira, Ryan Dalziel, and Matthew Halliday occupying the next five positions.
Domínguez, in 12th, complained of a lack of grip, especially while exiting the corners. After posting laps in Primary tires, Doornbos switched to the Alternates, but struggled with oversteer and spun in the eighth turn. His best time was resultantly forfeited, dropping him to 13th. Tristan Gommendy had with a poorly-handling car, causing him to drive into a run-off area on his last lap and hindering him from qualifying higher than 14th. Dan Clarke took 15th because of the high amount of traffic ahead of him on all of his laps, starting ahead of Legge in 16th. Alex Figge was the only driver who did not qualify; his back injuries that he suffered in a crash at Long Beach had been worsened by the JAGFlo Speedway's bumpy surface, resulting in him withdrawing from the race. He was substituted by Roberto Moreno, who worked as the driver coach of Pacific Coast Motorsports since the start of the season. Though Moreno had not raced in the series since 2003, he was chosen over Andreas Wirth because of his prior experience testing the DP01 chassis.
Saturday With a lap time of 58.224 seconds, Bourdais was the fastest driver of the final practice session on Saturday morning. Rahal, Wilson, Power, and Pagenaud were second- through fifth-quickest. Domínguez and Dalziel each caused red flags when they spun and stalled in the fourth and tenth corners, respectively. Bourdais continued showcasing a quick pace by recording the fastest time of the second preliminary practice session later that afternoon at 57.276 seconds, over six tenths of a second ahead of Power in second, followed by Rahal, Doornbos, and Gommendy. The only red flag of the session occurred because of a spin by Halliday.
During the final qualifying session, Bourdais had recorded a time of 57.242 seconds to officially take the pole position, outpacing Power by 0.163 seconds. However, Champ Car vice president of operations Tony Cotman ruled that Bourdais let by Wilson and Servià but held up Power during one of his flying laps, slowing him by 2.5 to 3 seconds. He was thus stripped of his quickest time and dropped to second place, giving Power the pole position for the third time in his career with a 57.405-second lap. Wilson started third, ahead of fourth-place Jani, who had the best qualifying result of his career, and fifth-place Servià. Rahal, sixth, felt that Power and Doornbos had ruined his last flying lap, but Cotman determined otherwise, stating that they were "well off line and out of the way."
Behind seventh-place Pagenaud and eighth-place Gommendy, Domínguez was left disappointed with his ninth-place result because he was unable to gain the grip he desired. Junqueira brought the session to an early end by spinning on-track, placing him 10th on the grid and forcing many drivers to abort their flying laps. Tagliani's quickest time was voided because he drove into a run-off area and rejoined the track directly in front of Doornbos in a manner that Cotman likened to Tracy and Tagliani's crash in the 2006 Grand Prix of San Jose. His next-best lap was still enough for him to start 11th. Minardi Team USA drivers Clarke and Doornbos, Halliday, and Pacific Coast Motorsports drivers Dalziel and Moreno started in the next five positions. Despite taking the 17th and final starting position, Legge had a positive attitude because she felt that her team fixed her car after numerous spins throughout the weekend.
Qualifying classification