A 20-year-old's first career win, Will Power's maiden pole and a third straight title for Sebastien Bourdais, all decided at Surfers Paradise.
The 2006 Lexmark Indy 300 was held at Surfers Paradise, Queensland, on 21 October 2006. Nelson Philippe won the 59-lap race from fifth on the grid and became the youngest winner in series history. Sebastien Bourdais took his third consecutive Drivers' Championship by finishing eighth.
A surprise winner and a championship settled on the same afternoon gave the 2006 Lexmark Indy 300 its drama. The race was the 13th and penultimate round of the Champ Car World Series, run on the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Queensland, Australia. Nelson Philippe took the win from fifth on the grid, while Sebastien Bourdais secured a third straight title by finishing eighth.
Who won the 2006 Lexmark Indy 300?
Nelson Philippe of CTE Racing HVM won the 59-lap race, his first and only career victory. At 20 years, two months and 29 days old, he became the youngest winner in the history of the series. Mario Dominguez took second and Alex Tagliani completed the podium for Team Australia.
Philippe started fifth and climbed through a race shaped by pit stop timing, cautions and a run of collisions. He was the 16th different winner of the event in its 16-year history, a fact that underlined how open the race had been from the start.
A street race at Surfers Paradise handed a 20-year-old his first win and the champion his third straight title.
How did the event come to Surfers Paradise?
The race was added to the 2006 calendar in August 2005, and it was the 16th running of an event that dated back to 1991. It used a 12-turn street course that measures 4.498 km (2.795 mi). Support races on the same weekend were the V8 Supercars, V8 Utes, Aussie Racing Cars and Carrera Cup.
Bridgestone brought standard and alternate dry tyres as well as grooved rain tyres for the weekend. Ryan Briscoe, a series debutant, was the other Australian driver in the field alongside Will Power.
What was the championship situation before the race?
Sebastien Bourdais led the Drivers' Championship with 338 points, 58 ahead of A. J. Allmendinger and 69 ahead of Justin Wilson. Only the top three could still win the title, and Bourdais needed to finish ninth or better to clinch it. Several team changes also reshaped the entry before the first practice session.
Only 70 points were left on offer across the final two rounds, so the outcome rested with that leading trio. Paul Tracy sat fourth on 184 points, while Philippe was fifth with 182, close enough to keep the chasing pack interested.
Three driver changes shaped the entry. Antonio Pizzonia took over the No. 18 Rocketsports Racing car from Tonis Kasemets. Andreas Wirth made his Champ Car debut with Dale Coyne Racing, replacing Juan Caceres, and Briscoe stepped into RuSPORT's second car after Cristiano da Matta was badly hurt in testing at Road America.
Friday practice was interrupted by two red flags. Bourdais set the fastest lap of the session at 1 minute 33.441 seconds, ahead of Tagliani, Wilson, Power and Tracy. Wilson stalled after braking too late at turn one, and Tracy's session ended when a tyre punctured and he struck a wall at the turn seven chicane.
How did qualifying shape the grid?
Will Power took his first career pole position with a time of 1 minute 31.839 seconds, the first pole for an Australian driver in the series since 1981. Bourdais kept second place from his Friday time, and Tracy lined up third after a lap that came up 0.120 seconds short of Power's effort.
Power had already set the early pace on Friday with 1 minute 31.403 seconds, and he waited until only eight minutes remained on Saturday before going out again. The Friday time had already put him on the front row, and the Saturday effort settled the pole.
Bourdais briefly topped the Saturday session with 1 minute 31.536 seconds, but he crashed hard into the left-side wall at turn one after hitting a tyre bundle placed beside the kerb. The red flag wiped out his time. The placement of that bundle drew criticism from Bourdais, Tracy and others once the session had finished.
Allmendinger's 1 minute 31.405 seconds would have put him second, but a red flag caused by Katherine Legge spinning at turn four cancelled it, dropping him to seventh. Philippe qualified fifth, which set up the race he went on to win.
Sunday's warm-up was scheduled for 30 minutes, but it began 11 minutes late and was cut to 25 minutes because an oil slick left by a car in a support race covered part of the circuit. Tracy was quickest in the warm-up at 1 minute 34.847 seconds, ahead of Power, Allmendinger, Clarke and Philippe.
How did the race unfold?
The race began with a single-file rolling start, the first clean start in the series since 1999. Allmendinger's fuel hose incident and an early clash between Tracy and Power in the pit stall damaged several contenders. Bourdais then collided with Power on lap 28, and he was given a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact.
Allmendinger drove off pit road with a fuel hose still attached, and the hose tore free and set fire to his car with methanol. The pit crews of Allmendinger and Junqueira put the flames out quickly, and nobody was hurt, although the fire cost Junqueira several positions. Both teams had to make a second stop to repair their cars.
Allmendinger later slammed the right-side barrier on lap 19 and parked on the short straight before turn four. His retirement removed the second rival who could still have caught Bourdais, leaving Bourdais needing only a ninth-place finish.
Philippe overtook Servia for the lead on lap 35, and Tracy took over on lap 40 during a cycle of green-flag stops. Dominguez led for the first and only time on the 43rd lap, and five cautions and eight lead changes kept the order shuffling until the closing stages.
On lap 28 Bourdais locked his brakes while trying to pass Power for second and clipped Power's left-front tyre. Power limped away with suspension damage and pitted twice to deal with it, while Bourdais was handed a drive-through penalty for what officials called avoidable contact with a rival.
The late stages were just as eventful. A crash by Jan Heylen on lap 44 brought out the fifth and final caution, and Pizzonia led the field back to green for the lap 50 restart. Tracy then cut the turn one chicane while attempting to pass Dominguez, and he was ordered to give up third to Tagliani on lap 53.
Pizzonia pitted a lap before the finish, which handed the lead to Philippe. Dominguez attacked hard on the closing laps and used all of his push-to-pass boost on the final lap, but Philippe held on and took the chequered flag.
Did the championship change hands?
Bourdais won his third consecutive Drivers' Championship without winning the race itself. Allmendinger's crash on lap 19 and Wilson's withdrawal after his practice incident removed the two rivals who could still catch him, and eighth place was enough. He finished the season 68 points clear of Allmendinger.
Bourdais became the first driver to win three straight top-level American open-wheel titles since Ted Horn took three in succession from 1946 to 1948. Afterwards he was awarded the Vanderbilt Cup for the championship.
Behind the champion, Wilson held third on 269 points. Philippe's 214 points moved him past Tracy, who finished on 209, into fourth place in the standings. The title battle was over, but the order behind it still shifted in the final laps.
What was the final classification?
Nelson Philippe, Mario Dominguez and Alex Tagliani finished first to third, in that order. Paul Tracy was fourth and Andrew Ranger took fifth, while Sebastien Bourdais finished eighth. Power, Briscoe, Pizzonia and Wirth were among the last classified finishers. The table below lists the top eight finishers with a short note on each.
| Position | Driver | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nelson Philippe | Started fifth; first and only career win |
| 2 | Mario Dominguez | 0.728 seconds behind the winner |
| 3 | Alex Tagliani | Team Australia; saved fuel late after low battery voltage |
| 4 | Paul Tracy | Forsythe Championship Racing; penalised for cutting the chicane |
| 5 | Andrew Ranger | Fifth place |
| 6 | Bruno Junqueira | Sixth, after losing positions during the pit fire |
| 7 | Charles Zwolsman Jr. | Seventh, after an early stop and a wall contact |
| 8 | Sebastien Bourdais | Eighth; third straight Drivers' Championship |
What did the drivers say after the race?
Philippe said he could hardly believe the result. He credited his team and his race engineer, Will Phillips, for a strong car and a superb strategy. He recalled arriving in Champ Car as a teenager with little experience and said he had worked hard on and off the track to get there.
Dominguez congratulated the winner and said the result gave his team momentum heading into the season finale, even though he described the year as the worst of his life. Tagliani said he understood Power's disappointment, having lost a chance at a win at Montreal after being on pole there.
Power was subdued by his result and blamed Bourdais for their collision. The co-owners of Team Australia called the move stupid and uncharacteristic. Tracy was furious about his late penalty and believed officials had only handed it out so a home-team car could finish on the podium.
Bourdais said his mindset had been to chase a win once Allmendinger crashed out. He explained that his car had started to run hard over the bumps in mid-track, and his right-front tyre locked as soon as he touched the brakes. Allmendinger, who had been upset about his early accident, blamed the fuel hose for hurting the handling of his car.
Briscoe was delighted to complete his first Champ Car race and said he had gained valuable experience, setting his fastest lap towards the end of the race. Allmendinger's accident was his last race in the series before he moved to NASCAR, and Forsythe Championship Racing parted company with him soon afterwards.
What did the Surfers Paradise round mean for the series?
The round was the only 2006 race held outside the Americas, which made it a rare visit for the series to that part of the world. Philippe's victory also made him the youngest winner the series had seen, and it was the first pole for an Australian driver since 1981.
Philippe never won again in American open-wheel racing across his five later starts, so the Surfers Paradise victory stands as a single peak in his career. Bourdais's title was his third in a row.
