While British motor sport fans were watching on to see if
Jenson Button could fight for victory in the British Grand Prix at
Silverstone, another British star was charging to victory on the other side of the pond.
Justin Wilson, formally of Minardi and Jaguar, clinched the first win for both himself and the RuSPORT team in the Champ Car World Series with victory in the Molson Indy Toronto and
Crash.net took the chance to congratulate the Sheffield-born man on his maiden victory...
Crash.net:
Justin, that's your first win in the Champ Car World Series - how does it feel to have got onto the top step of the podium?
Justin Wilson:
It feels great to have finally made the podium full-stop! I've been trying and getting so close for the last year and a half so it feels great to have finally achieved that.
Crash.net:
Just talk us through the race, how did it unfold from your point of view?
Justin Wilson:
From my perspective the start was pretty good. Everyone got away clean and I was settling in behind Sebastien [Bourdais] and Paul [Tracy] and it was going ok, I was comfortable there until about lap 20 when I started to burn off my rear tyres and I struggling to hold on to it so we dropped back a bit towards the end of that stint and the following stint. Paul and Sebastien then had their coming together and brought out the yellow flags and that's when the race started to get interesting. I was on light fuel for the last stint and was able to make a few passes and get into the lead.
Crash.net:
One of those passes was on Alex Tagliani just before the yellow flags came out - can you talk us through that move...
Justin Wilson:
Yeah there was some debate as to when the yellow flag came out. Alex is saying he saw one going into the hairpin and that's how I got past, but I didn't see that. I saw him leave the door open so I dived down the inside. It was about three or four corners later, when I got to turn six, when I was told there was a yellow flag and I'd already seen at that stage that AJ [Allmendinger] had followed me through so I was a bit shocked when he drove back past me on the pit straight to take second place back!
Crash.net:
Then it was a case of trying to chase down Oriol Servia for the win. Turn three is one of those where you know you can pass but there has been incidents in the past, so how 'heart-in-mouth' was that move for the lead?
Justin Wilson:
It was closer than I was expecting because I'd been watching Oriol for quite a few laps and he had been going down the middle of the road and he;d start to brake and miss the bumps and go to the outside so I was pretty confident that the door was wide. We're not allowed to defend in Champ Car so if I could get close enough I knew I could make the move work.
