Last week Champ Car fans were treated to a new face on top of the podium when Alex Tagliani finally broke his duck in the championship to take his first victory.

That victory overshadowed another impressive performance from Sebastien Bourdais, whose third place means he heads into this weekends Grand Prix of Denver with a 47 point lead in the title race – the largest lead anyone had enjoyed this season.

Bourdais had built his title challenge on four wins from the opening eight races of the season, but his consistency is shown by the fact he has only finished outside the top five once this year.

The man second in the standings is the man who has had the most recent success in Denver, the second Newman Haas driver Bruno Junqueira.

The two time defending champion led a one-two for the team in the race in 2003, beating Bourdais to the line by just 0.335 seconds. The Brazilian also started both of those races from pole position. After a difficult race at Road America, where he finished down in 15th place, he will aim to get his title challenge back on track. He will also be mindful that his last Champ Car victory was in this race in last season – his title charge this year built on a series of second place finishes.

Victory at Road America for the ever popular Tagliani has lifted the Rocketsports Racing driver up to third in the standings, only 13 points behind Junqueira. His run to victory from 13th on the grid was the biggest race day improvement seen this season.

Tagliani's breakthrough victory at Road America vaulted the Canadian into the third position in the points chase, the highest that the Rocketsports Racing pilot has been in his five years in the Champ Car World Series. His charge from 13th to first last weekend was the biggest race-day improvement seen this year and also marked the farthest back on the grid that a race winner has started since Mario Dominguez came from 12th to win in Australia in 2002.

Dominguez and his Herdez Competition teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay got back on the fast track last weekend as well, each scoring top-five finishes, the first double top-five of the season for the team. Hunter-Reay started from the front row, rebounded nicely from a first-lap spin and went on to finish fourth while Dominguez started 15th but made up 10 positions to finish fifth. Dominguez provided one of the year's most entertaining drives in Denver last season, making many on-track passes and coming back after a first-lap spin to take seventh.

Forsythe Championship Racing had its customary representation on the podium at Elkhart Lake, but the man flying the team banner on the day was not among the usual suspects. Rodolfo Lavin earned his first-ever Champ Car podium finish and led the first Champ Car laps of his career when he finished second to Tagliani in Elkhart Lake. His teammates Paul Tracy and Patrick Carpentier sit in fourth and fifth respectively in the points heading to Denver, and could use a podium to keep Bourdais within reach. The duo have had conflicting amounts of success in Denver, with Tracy gaining at least five spots from his grid position in each of the two recent Denver events. Carpentier has not been as fortunate, running only 61 laps in each of the two races, placing 17th in both instances.