CHAMP CAR WORLD SERIES: ROAD AMERICA

August 7, 2004

Sebastien Bourdais

Ryan Hunter-Reay

Jimmy Vasser

JIMMY VASSER: Well, it certainly is the best opportunity we've had to win a race all season. So, you know, Sebastien's been very difficult to deal with all season long, the pace-setter here all weekend. So he's going to be difficult. Ryan. I mean, it's going to be a tough race. The way things go, you can qualify third, and you never know what happens, where you might end up on the first corner. But I think if we can settle in and have a good race, good fuel economy, you know, we're going to put ourself in position to win.

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, for sure it is. It's a great thing we're on the front row here. The car was pretty good yesterday. Today we went with a bit more of conservative approach and ran on old tires in qualifying. Our last run, we ran on the new set, and we just underestimated the understeer we had in the car. I went out and it was just pushing everywhere. We knew we had it locked up for today, good front row start. Slept real good last night. The good news is we'll have fresh rubber all day tomorrow.

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Yeah, for sure. The tires were great. I wish I could have used them to their potential a bit more. That would have been a nice thing. But we got a lot of work to do tonight, and in the morning we got to make the front end of the car better. That's what we've been chasing all weekend; that's what we chase every weekend. My teammate Mario, he chases a bit different things. Always with my car it's understeer. We're trying. We're trying real hard. We'll get it. I know we will have a good race car tomorrow and we'll definitely have a good race. Racing with some good guys here.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, I don't know. Just seems the McDonald's team is very good. We're working very hard for it. We have a strong baseline every weekend that we've been building since last year. And we're stronger and more consistent than last year. It's a team effort, and I think I've always been a good qualifier. So I'm just glad it's working out right now. Hopefully it's going to hold like that the whole season.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, for sure, 'push to pass' is going to be a problem for me here because everybody is going to be all over me. I don't know how it's going to work out, but I'm going to try to make a clean, fast start and then after I think we'll see the value of the car. So hopefully we'll have a good run. I'm not really too concerned. I think we've been fast, as you said, the whole weekend. And it should be a nice race. I just hope that it's not going to be any disturbance by the weather, but nobody really can assure that.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Well, it's pretty simple really. The white line is completely covered by rubber, and I never saw it before I actually went off. And I thought I was pretty far from the limit of the racetrack, and I was just trying to prepare myself first fast lap. I don't know, I just -- when I finished to brake, I just (inaudible) the wheel, and I understood I was having my left rear in the grass. And the thing stepped up, and I thought I was going to lose it. I went in the gravel trap, hit the tires, but I've been able to come back on the racetrack. Really fortunate that I was not in a hot lap because really I could have end up exactly like Tracy.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, well, basically I think the biggest progress on my side from the team, on the McDonald's team for sure is that we've been able to have a generic street course setup that's working very well. And on road courses, it's pretty much always the same thing: you just adapt the ride heights, and that was the case already before I came. But the street course were like, okay, there was the Toronto setup, the Vancouver setup, the Long Beach setup, the St. Pete setup. We couldn't really figure out a way to make it work everywhere. So it was kind of really a problem because we really had a hard time to get some references. So for sure, the way we worked during the winter, we've been able to set up something that's more consistent and working much better. And I'm happier with the car, especially in race conditions.

JIMMY VASSER: It depends. Depends on where you are in the pack. It could start raining in the middle of the race. I mean, usually if you have a good car in the dry, it's good in the wet. You know, I think I'm reasonable in the wet, but I'm certainly not gold medal swimmer, that's for sure. Learning to race in California, you don't get many chances to one in the wet. I would prefer it to stay dry myself.

RYAN HUNTER-REAY: Oh, I'll go either way. I like racing in the rain. I've raced here a lot with Skip Barber in the wet, so I know the place. But, like Jimmy said, if you have a good car, that's the key here in the wet. I guess we'll have to see. It will be interesting if it starts raining in the middle of the race instead of beforehand when everybody can prepare for it. We'll see. It's the beauty of this series.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: It just depends when it happens. If it happens before the start of the race, we might never start the thing. I don't know. No, really, you know my point of view about last year, so it's really not even really worth talking about it. It's been raining a lot ever since I've been driving, and I really like rain conditions. It's pretty well-known. No, I don't really care, except that I'm just afraid that the race is never going to happen if it rains really hard. I guess we see.