24 hours after Sébastien Bourdais established a new track record in Friday qualifying at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, seven drivers were able to improve on that mark during Saturday's session. But Will Power was far and away the fastest of the fast on the day, finishing.594 seconds ahead of his closest competitor, Robert Doornbos, thus clinching his fifth pole position of the year and second in succession. Power's feat was all the more notable as he is driving with a broken wrist suffered in his home race three weeks ago in Australia. Bourdais was unable to better his Friday time, but will start the race next to Will Power on the front row of the grid.
Race
The final race of the season got off to a ragged start as Oriol Servià, Nelson Philippe, and Alex Tagliani all stalled on the grid. At the front, Will Power held off Sébastien Bourdais at the start and took charge of the field behind the pace car. A potential fight for second place in the championship standings between Justin Wilson and Robert Doornbos was blunted when Doornbos' car developed a clutch problem. Doornbos' mechanics valiantly worked to fix the problem in the hopes of securing the point for fastest lap, and after 51 minutes of work, Doornbos did exactly that, securing his third place in the championship over Will Power. At the front of the race Bourdais was working with a bit of a disadvantage for the race because he and teammate Graham Rahal were docked 22 seconds off the allotted 75 seconds of Power-to-Pass time after they laid rubber down on their grid spots making practice starts during the Sunday morning session. But Bourdais was able to get the power down coming out of the Peraltada corner before Power could. This slight handling difference gave Bourdais a critical speed advantage at the end of the long main straight. Bourdais easily passed Power on the main straight on lap 24 and then held off the Australian for the rest of the race, even after a late race yellow flag tightened up the field. Bourdais' victory in his final Champ Car race before heading off to Formula One for the 2008 season was his 31st overall, putting him into a tie for 6th on the all-time Champ Car victory list with Paul Tracy and Al Unser, Jr. Highlighting the race behind the Bourdais and Power was the performance of Oriol Servià who recovered from the stall on the grid and fought through the entire field all the way to third place. His performance allowed him to leapfrog from ninth to sixth place in the final championship standings.
Sébastien Bourdais
Justin Wilson
Robert Doornbos
Will Power
Graham Rahal