One of Canada's favourite racing sons picked up the mantle of Champ Car World Series points leader after his win in Cleveland, and now Paul Tracy will hope to use his hometown track to fend off the baying pack in this weekend's Molson Indy Toronto.
Tracy claimed a narrow one-point lead in the Champ Car standings with his Cleveland win, and leads the series to the historic 20th running of the Molson Indy Toronto. The Toronto event is the longest-running non-US event on the Champ Car calendar and has been a bastion of support for the series since the inaugural race in 1986. Tracy has earned a pair of wins on the 1.755-mile street course that winds through Exhibition Place, but will need another strong showing if he is to maintain his place in the title hunt.
Qualifying could well be the key to victory in Sunday's 88-lap affair as the driver that has won the pole in each of the last three years has gone on to win the race. If starting up front is a sign of big things to come, Tracy appears to be in good stead as the series points leader has taken the green flag from the front row in each of the last three trips to Toronto – including the 2003 event where he went wire-to-wire to secure victory. In fact qualifying success has been a sign of even bigger things than a race win as the last four Toronto pole-sitters have gone on to claim the series championship in that same season.
Tracy has been the man to beat on qualifying day this season, leading the series in qualifying average (2.6) and scoring a pair of poles to take the lead for the year-end Bridgestone Pole Award. The strength has carried over into race day as well as the 2003 champion has earned four podium finishes in the year's five starts.
He wrested the series lead from defending Molson Indy Toronto winner Sebastien Bourdais with his Cleveland win, dropping the defending series champion to the second spot for the first time since Milwaukee. Bourdais has yet to finish lower than sixth this year and leads the series in laps and miles completed, heading into a track where he led 75 of 84 laps a year ago in securing the victory.
The achievements of Tracy's Forsythe Championship Racing and Bourdais' Newman Haas Racing squads have been well-documented, but it is a pair of relatively new Champ Car teams that are putting the most heat on the frontrunners. Second-year team RuSPORT and the third-year PKV Racing outfit occupy the third through sixth spots in the championship chase, with an intriguing mix of young lions and former champions carrying the fight to the leaders.
The RuSPORT duo of AJ Allmendinger and Justin Wilson are third and fourth respectively after five races and are looking to continue their climb. Allmendinger is fulfilling his tremendous potential in the 2005 season and has scored career-best second-place finishes in each of the last three races. The young Californian led his first laps of the season two weeks ago in Cleveland and showed that he can pick his way through a crowd, coming from ninth on the grid to take the runner-up spot.
Wilson showed perseverance in Cleveland as well, overcoming qualifying troubles that left him 16th on the starting grid to score a seventh-place finish. His climb through the field earned him an additional championship point for gaining the most positions in the race, and kept him solidly in the fourth spot in the points. Wilson qualified a strong fifth in his rookie trip to Toronto a year ago, but ended his day in twelfth after contact dropped him off the pace.
The PKV duo of Jimmy Vasser and Cristiano da Matta have spent their fair share at the top this year as well, and head to Toronto looking to continue their march to the front. Vasser has used a three-race run of top-six finishes, including a pole in Portland, to climb into the fifth spot as he heads to Toronto for the 14th time in his illustrious career. The Californian had the best run of his Toronto career just one year ago, jumping nine spots from his grid position to end the day in second place.
