Sébastien Bourdais – Newman/Haas Lola-Cosworth B03-00 Champ Car

For me, the 2006 Champ Car season started off with a big bang, winning the first four races at Long Beach, Houston, Monterey and Milwaukee. Although most teams were running the same Lola chassis as we were, due to the demise of Reynard, Newman/Haas had provided me with major changes in setup that suited my style of driving, so I was able to get the best out of the car. As a team, we were on a roll having won the 2004 and 2005 championships, although my car was basically the same, there were subtle differences to the 2005 car. In fact, what is great about the Lola B03-00 car is the longevity of performance, since 2003, at a very top—winning the series with Paul Tracy in the first year of competition. So, my confidence driving these initial races was extremely high—I wanted another championship!  The Lola was very similar to drive as my 2002 F3000 Championship-winning Lola B05/50, but the B03-00 wasn’t quite as powerful and was quite heavy at over 800-kilograms.

I think it is very important to have a good understanding with team and driver. It’s not good when a driver wants one thing and the team wants another, at Newman/Haas we had a really good understanding, which was as vital as having a good car. As results show, we were getting stronger and stronger, but the opposition had upped their game too, particularly with A.J. Allmendinger of Forsythe Racing and Justin Wilson at RuSport. My teammate, Bruno Junqueira, was, as always, the first man I had to beat, the old saying is “the first competitor to beat is your teammate.” He certainly kept me honest through the year.