After exciting back-to-back races in Cleveland and Mont-Tremblant, the Champ Car World Series completes its second three-race run this season with a visit to the popular street circuit in downtown Toronto for the Steelback Grand Prix.
Although the previous two rounds were held on wildly different tracks to that which the Canadian city offers, the battle along Lakeshore Boulevard still promises to be a heated one.
The top two contenders for the win will surely be Robert Doornbos and Sebastien Bourdais, as the pair arrive in Toronto tied for the championship lead, on 145 points, and with the top two places on the podium shared between them last weekend. Dutchman Doornbos scored his first victory of the season at Mont-Tremblant, topping a run of four podiums in the previous five races. The Minardi Team USA pilot became the fourth different winner this season, but his consistency has marked him out as Bourdais' closest challenger.
“We are going into Toronto with as much confidence as ever," Doornbos claimed, "After our first race win, we hope to continue to show our competitiveness in Toronto and back up the victory in Mont-Tremblant. I think it's going to be a very close race for the championship from this point on, and we as a team have to keep on our toes if we want to keep winning. As the season continues, however, we are getting stronger and stronger and I think that will be very clear once again in Toronto.”
The pressure Doornbos has been applying in recent races appears to be taking its toll on the three-time champion Frenchman, who spent the immediate post-race period in St Jovite complaining about his rivals tactics - even though few could see his grounds for objection. Doornbos heads to Toronto for the first time this weekend, while Bourdais makes his fourth visit, but the war of words will add extra spice to what is expected to be another tight battle between the two Europeans.
“The McDonald's team has managed to win the Toronto race once, but it's not an easy place to find success, the Frenchman admitted, "It's one of the tracks where it's really easy to make mistakes and lose the handling of the car. Last year, we just didn't seem to be able to put it together and Forsythe seemed to have a little bit better pace than we did, so we were happy to settle for third. Domination is a very easy word to say but difficult, if not impossible, to make happen. There have definitely been challenges along the way, even when we won, so we just have to keep working at it and trying to get it right every weekend.”
Sitting only 14 points behind the top two is Will Power, the Australian still searching for a follow-up win to add to his maiden victory on the streets of Las Vegas at the start of the season. Power has been on form since then, but unfortunate incidents have dampened his chances of challenging Bourdais and, latterly, Doornbos for top spot in the points.
With his on-track performances of the last few races and his renowned street fighting ability, however, Toronto may well be the place where the 2006 Roshfrans Rookie of the Year finds himself on the top step of the podium once again.
“I'm looking very forward to going back to a street circuit," Power admitted after a run of three road or, in Cleveland's case, airport circuits, "The Aussie Vineyards cars have been very strong on these types of circuits and I've been very competitive on them as well. We've run into some bad luck in the past couple of races, but it's starting to pick back up in Canada and Toronto was where our luck started to turn around last year."
