While the leaders chose to stay out several drivers running outside the top ten, including Paul Tracy's last minute replacement Oriol Servia, PKV Racing teammates Tristan Gommendy and Neel Jani and Minardi's Dan Clarke, dived onto pit road for an out of sequence stop that would have great bearings on the final results.
On the lap eleven restart Bourdais got the perfect jump on Power, who in turn found Tagliani forcing his way into second place but while the veteran Canadian driver had the pace to stay ahead of the Aussie born series sophomore the race leader was in a different class and had soon opened up a lead of nearly five seconds.
Power kept a watching brief of Tagliani as the race headed towards the first round of pitstops for the leading runners with Pagenaud and his fellow rookie Graham Rahal looking far more settled this weekend than last rounding out the top five.
The leaders began making their first stops on lap 30, briefly allowing Servia to take the lead before he had to pit on lap 39. However in the interim the Spaniard was able to use the clean air he enjoyed to vault past everybody bar Bourdais when he returned to the track on lap 42.
However such was Bourdais superiority on the track and his pit-crews speed off the track, the triple champ was sitting on a 20-second cushion over his nearest pursuers when the stops were completed. New second place man Servia had breathing room between himself and a hard charging Tagliani who now had his RSPORTS stablemate Justin Wilson for company after a quick stop enabled him to negotiate Pagenaud and Rahal and then a decisive move on Power gained him another spot.
All of Bourdais' hard work was negated on lap 53 however when the yellow flags were out for a second time for Pagenaud's turn eight argument with the tyre barriers and while this caution period gave all the leaders (and Servia) the chance to make their final stops, it also meant that everybody would be closely watching their fuel gauges for the remainder of the race.
![Sebastien Bourdais - Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing Panoz-Cosworth DP01 [pic courtesy Champ Car World Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/310466.jpg)
