Bourdais wins IndyCar race

France's Sebastien Bourdais won the Wisconsin 250 oval race, capturing his 34th career IndyCar victory and second of the year by holding off Helio Castroneves and Graham Rahal.

It was Bourdais' second triumph at the Milwaukee Mile, where his most recent prior oval win had come in 2006, and it advanced him to a share of seventh on the all-time IndyCar victory list.

"It was unbelievable," Bourdais said. "Sometimes you have got it and when it's right it's really, really, really good."

Bourdais passed rivals at will in the 250-lap feature and had a lap on the entire field when he made his final pit stop with 36 laps remaining, returning to the track still in the lead.

Over the last laps, Castroneves and American Rahal closed in on the 36-year-old Frenchman but were unable to catch him.

"It was very difficult to pass," Brazilian runner-up Castroneves said. "I was pushing. I was trying everything."

Rahal was third followed by Colombia's Juan Pablo Montoya, who stretched his season points lead from 46 to 54 over New Zealand's Scott Dixon with four races remaining in the campaign.

Castroneves and Rahal share third in the championship fight, each 69 off Montoya's pace. Australian defending champion Will Power fell from second to fifth at 70 points adrift after crashing out in 21st Sunday.

Bourdais won 31 races and four season titles during his ChampCar dynasty days from 2003 through 2007 and has now won three times since returning to the US open-wheel series, including last year at Toronto and six weeks ago at Detroit.

Montoya, Dixon, Bourdais and American Josef Newgarden have each won twice this season.
Source: AFP