CHAMP CAR WORLD SERIES: GERMAN 500

May 10, 2003

Sebastien Bourdais

Michel Jourdain, Jr.

Bruno Junqueira

MICHEL JOURDAIN: I am happy although it is such a long race tomorrow that qualifying doesn't matter so much, but it is better to be in the front than in the back. We knew we had a good car even this morning and I know that Team Rahal always has a great car on superspeedways so I went out and just got a feel for the car early and within a few laps we were flat out.

MICHEL JOURDAIN: I know that we always have good cars on the superspeedways but it's a very long race with a lot of pit stops and we need to make sure that we are there at the end to put ourselves in position to win. I am confident that this team knows how to do that and I will do my best.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: My run was OK, the car was pretty neutral, pretty good. I ran the short line all the way around and tried to get a good time.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I don't know, last year I should be on the pole, especially on the ovals. It's frustrating, although I am second and that's not a bad position but I am two-tenths off the pole that's a lot of difference for an oval.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: You know, I think we had a very strong car since the beginning of this event. It was a big surprise, especially in qualifying, because we were so quick in Brands so we thought we didn't trim enough of the car because you all know that we had to keep the same configuration for this event about the choices on the downforce you know. We set the best lap times this morning and we knew that it was possible to do it for qualifying. It was because of my job because as Michel said, it was flat all the way around and it's going to be a very interesting race because in traffic, the car is difficult to drive. We just have to wait until to tomorrow to see if we did a good enough job to prepare for the race.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: Yeah, I think we definitely have a chance to be on the pace pretty much everywhere. We did it basically in the first two events, it was a little more difficult in Long Beach but we did it again in Brands with a win at the end of the weekend. So we just expect that this time is going to be different and the winner is going to be the one that starts from the pole.

SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS: I think that we had a good winter test, we learned a lot and especially me from the team. I think that time gave us a lot of confidence. Basically the Champ Car is just a big F3000 car with twice as much horsepower and twice as much downforce, it's a bit heavier. It's no big deal, you just need to improve yourself and get more and more precise and hopefully it will be like this all season.

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA: I have no idea. Two-tenths here is like a lifetime. Our setups were really close and I was flat. I don't know. For sure I carry a camera that may cause a little bit of drag, maybe half a tenth maximum, but the rest I don't know. Maybe the engine, we'll have to look and see what it was.

MICHEL JOURDAIN: I think its not only the last couple of years. Emerson Fittipaldi came from Formula 1 and it's been quite big ever since CART started. Max, Juan Pablo and many guys came. I think its great. The level of driving is very impressive and you have a lot of guys that were champions from F3000 or whatever and they are usually winning wherever they came from so it raises the level of competition and makes everyone better.