2003 London Champ Car Trophy

Background

The 2003 London Champ Car Trophy was the start of a two-week European stretch for the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series; the German 500 was held at EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Klettwitz, Germany one week later. Entering the race, Paul Tracy led the Drivers' Championship with 64 points, ahead of Bruno Junqueira with 38 points and Michel Jourdain Jr. with 34. Adrián Fernández was fourth with 28 points, and Jimmy Vasser was fifth with 20 points. With 66 points, Lola led their rivals Reynard in the Manufacturers' Championship by 36 points.

CART had not visited Brands Hatch since 1978 when Rick Mears won for Team Penske. The series held two previous events in the United Kingdom at the Rockingham Motor Speedway in Corby, which was dropped from the season schedule in November 2002 because of poor attendance and inclement weather. Brands Hatch's return was publicly announced at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham on 9 January 2003, and it was held on the Indy configuration. CART president and CEO Chris Pook cited the track's proximity from London and the history of the Brands Hatch circuit as the primary reasons of hosting the race there. It was part of CART's desire to distance itself from the Indy Racing League by holding races outside the United States.

Brands Hatch and CART invested $2 million in enhancing the track's safety standards; 2 mi of fencing was erected around each side of the Indy layout, around 38,000 tyres were used to construct barriers and the majority of the guard-railing alongside the circuit was reconstructed. The improvements were completed on the day before the official announcement of the race. Tim Mayer, CART's international and development liaison officer, admitted more efforts were needed to upgrade the track to obtain an FIA Grade 2 licence for a potential future event on the Grand Prix layout and noted that its history had to be regarded when altering it for increased space:

Championship leader Tracy said he was excited to race at Brands Hatch and felt the circuit would be challenging to drive. He had won the previous three races of the season, and aimed to secure his fourth consecutive victory, but said he was not thinking about his recent success. After starting from pole position in two of the three opening rounds of the season but retiring from the lead in both races, Sébastien Bourdais of Newman/Haas Racing said he wanted to win the race because of its proximity to his home country France. He felt the two qualifying sessions would be influential in deciding its outcome and believed overtakes would be sparse. Walker Racing's Darren Manning said that he hoped he would perform well at the circuit since Brands Hatch was the only track on the CART schedule he had previously raced on.

Practice and qualifying

There were three practice sessions preceding the race: two 50-minute sessions on 3 May and a third 75-minute session on the morning of 4 May. Manning lapped fastest in the first practice session at 37.953 seconds, ahead of Junqueira and Tracy. Tiago Monteiro spun at Surtees corner but avoided damaging his car. Fernández caused the session to be suspended when he spun backwards into a tyre barrier at Surtees corner, which caused heavy damage to his car's rear; he was unhurt. Tracy led the second practice session, at 37.263 seconds. Bourdais finished with the second-fastest time with Alex Tagliani in third. Junqueira and Manning were fourth and fifth, their best times two thousandths of a second apart. Two red flags came out during the session: the first was for Tracy who spun exiting Druids hairpin, removing the front wing of his car in a collision with a tyre barrier, the second when Tagliani spun at the pit lane entrance midway through practice.

Qualifying was split into two sessions; both sessions took place on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and lasted 60 minutes with one driver allowed on the track at any time. The Saturday qualifying order would be set in reverse of the day's earlier practice sessions with Sunday's running order based on Saturday qualifying results. Each driver was allowed four timed laps, and the starting order was determined by their fastest lap times. One championship point was available to the fastest drivers of both qualifying sessions. They were guaranteed to start on the front row of the grid for Monday's race. This was the first time this format was used on a road course in CART after drivers voiced concerns over their ability to achieve a lap time without encountering traffic. The first qualifying session had track temperatures lower than observed in the morning and drivers could not get the optimum tyre temperature. This meant they could only go faster on their final attempts.

Tracy took provisional pole by recording the only lap close to 36 seconds with a new track record of 37.006 seconds on his last attempt, 0.016 seconds ahead of Junqueira who led until Tracy's time. Junquiera's performance was compromised as he drove in an altered car that had better straightline speed but was slower in the corners. Bourdais ended the session third with Oriol Servià fourth and Manning fifth. Following him were the Canadian duo of Patrick Carpentier in sixth and Tagliani seventh. Two other Mexican drivers, Jourdain and Mario Domínguez, were ninth and tenth. Alex Yoong recovered from gear linkage issues from practice, but an error at Druids hairpin left him 14th. Patrick Lemarié, Rodolfo Lavín, Joël Camathias and Roberto Moreno were in the next four provisional positions. Ryan Hunter-Reay did not set a lap after spinning on the front straight before starting his first timed lap. He was sent to the rear of the qualifying line and could not manage a second run. Monteiro and Camathias made two outings because of a miscommunication between their respective teams and completed three timed laps on the first runs. Both drivers were allowed back on the track later in the session and warmed up their tyres to gain the optimum running temperature. Monteiro and Camathias ran four out-laps before their final attempt.

In the third practice session, Fernández was quickest early on until Bourdais moved to the top of the time sheets. Tracy then took over the top spot, but Bourdais responded with a last minute lap of 37.379 seconds. Tracy was 0.120 seconds slower in second. Fernández and Servià were third and fourth and Junqueira fifth. Several incidents took place during the session. Lavin lost control under braking for Druids hairpin and was beached in the turn's gravel trap causing the session's first stoppage; he was imposed an eight-minute penalty. Yoong locked his brakes and struck the left-hand side tyre barrier at Druids hairpin, necessitating a second red flag. Camathias prompted the final stoppage after he spun at Clark Curve, which ended the session with two minutes left.

The weather was hot and sunny with a slight breeze, and it was expected that lap times would improve, since teams were more knowledgeable of the track conditions and more rubber had been laid on the racing line. Bourdais looked set to challenge Tracy, but he ran wide leaving Paddock Hill bend on his last qualifying lap and put the left-hand side of his car into the gravel, creating enough decompression to pull his hand off his steering wheel. Tracy thus took the 14th pole position of his career, his first since the 2000 Michigan 500, and his first on a road course since the 1994 Grand Prix of Monterey. Third-placed Junqueira altered his car, but the changes created excess understeer he and could not push hard. Servia remained in fourth position while Tagliani made downforce changes to his back-up car and moved from seventh to fifth. Fernández was another driver to move up two positions from his Saturday qualifying result and started sixth. Manning elected to push harder than any other driver but was unable to better his time and fell to eighth.

Qualifying classification

Warm-up

The drivers took to the track at 10:00 British Summer Time (BST) (UTC+1) for a 30-minute warm-up session.

Race

The race started at 14:00 BST on 5 May. Just under 40,000 people were in attendance. Close to the start, weather conditions were partly cloudy with the air temperature ranging between 63 -. Former racing drivers Damon Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti commanded the drivers to start their engines. The first caution was triggered on the first lap when the drivers in the first two rows of the grid were not alongside each other. Competitive racing began at the start of lap two, and Tracy maintained his pole position advantage heading into the first corner. Farther back, Fernández made contact with Tagliani and drifted wide to the left side of the track but managed to continue. Vasser drove into the pit lane and got out of his car to retire with left-front suspension damage caused by his front tyre turning in. Tracy began to pull away from the rest of the field, extending his lead to 2.088 seconds over Bourdais by the start of the eleventh lap. Junqueira maintained third position, followed by Tagliani in fourth and Servià in fifth. Four laps later, Carpentier slowed momentarily and was overtaken by Fernández on the backstraight for eighth place.

At the front of the field, Bourdais and Junqueira began catching Tracy. Junqueira lowered Tracy's lead to 1.401 seconds as the fastest lap of the race at the time was set by Carpentier who completed a circuit in 38.515 seconds on his 18th lap. The first round of green flag pit stops began on lap 49 when Tagliani, Monteiro and Lavín entered the pit lane for fuel and tyres. During this period, Manning ran off the circuit and into a gravel trap at Paddock Hill bend. Haberfeld, caught out by his cold tyres, went wide into some grass at Graham Hill bend. Tracy ran more downforce than his nearest rivals and used more fuel as a consequence. He was delayed by the slower Lavín losing two seconds before he made his pit stop on the 55th lap. Bourdais and Tracy ran within about a half second of each other during the following 24 laps before a second caution was necessitated for an accident on lap 80.

Yoong was behind Moreno in 11th, and in front of Jourdain in 12th, when he locked his brakes on the run to Druids corner and drifted wide onto the dirty side of the track. He then ran into the left-hand side tyre barrier at the turn becoming the second retirement of the race. During the caution, Manning and Tagliani, made pit stops for fuel because they wanted to push harder than the rest of the field. Doing this, however, required them to make an additional pit stop due to the mandatory two pit stop regulation enacted by CART. The safety car was withdrawn at the end of lap 85 and racing resumed. Bourdais led and was followed by Tracy in second as the entire field went through Paddock Hill bend without incident. Bourdais and Tracy exchanged the race's fastest lap as the margin between the two drivers was consistently a second. Junqueira was a further five seconds adrift in third while Domínguez moved ahead of Servià and into fourth. On lap 107, Lemarié and Hunter-Reay began the second phase of green flag pit stops by entering the pit lane. A light spray of fluid was observed at the rear of Tracy's car as he made his pit stop on the 112th lap. Bourdais made his second pit stop five laps later and Tagliani led the field for the next 16 laps.

In the meantime on lap 118, Tracy's car caught fire at the rear because his gearbox failed after he crossed the start/finish line.

Post-race

The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media at a later press conference. Bourdais said of his maiden success in the series, "We made it. It was difficult but we made it. We would probably have been the winner in two races already. It's been frustrating after the first events. The worm turned. Paul had trouble today and we got a bit lucky." He added that the victory satisfied him and his team after as be believed he could have won races earlier in the season. Second-placed Junqueira stated that he was pleased with advancing his position in the points' standings and spoke of his hope that the pit stop phase would fall in his favour during the race, "I am closer now but I know that if I want to win the championship I am going to have to pull a few wins out of the bag." Domínguez said that his team worked hard to produce his third-place result and spoke of his feeling that his performance at Brands Hatch was better than his victory at the 2002 Honda Indy 300. He revealed that he acquainted himself with the optimum line around the circuit's by trailing Manning during Saturday's free practice sessions, "He's got lots of little tricks. The guy's who've been here before, they know their way around. Even though it's a small track, it has a very particular driving style."

Tracy's retirement from a broken gearbox was his first of the season. He commented on the championship situation, "It's never good to give away points like this. Now we don't have a cushion. This DNF is very costly. It's disappointing to have a failure like that. We would have been content to finish on the podium, but the engine let go on us." Tracy said his gearbox shifted by itself three to four laps and heard noises and spoke emitting from his car before his retirement, "When I was rolling down the hill, I had no gearbox. Otherwise, the car was running good."

Media reaction to the race was largely negative. Derick Allsop of The Independent argued that the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit was too restrictive for Champ Cars with overtaking "virtually impossible", "A crowd of nearly 40,000 witnessed Cart's latest attempt to find a home in this country and could be forgiven for wondering why the series still claims to represent racing at its most thrilling. For two hours they watched the cars circulating the 1.2-mile Indy track, nestling in the natural amphitheatre here, and waited in vain for the much-vaunted spectacle to materialise." The Guardians Richard Polkey wrote the spectators were "entitled to feel let down" after fuel economy created a processional event, "It was hardly the way to help spread the gospel of Cart – Championship Auto Racing Teams – around the globe, which was the reason they were here – and at Rockingham in the past two years".

The result kept Tracy in the Drivers' Championship led with 65 points but his lead over Junqueira was reduced to 11 points. With 42 points, Jourdain kept third place as Fernández maintained fourth position with 29 points. Carpentier was fifth with 28 points. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Lola further extended their lead over Reynard to 54 points with 14 races left in the season.

Race classification

Standings after the race

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for the drivers' standings.

References

Name_of_race = 2003 London Champ Car Trophy | Year_of_race = 2003 | Previous_race_in_season = 2003 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach | Next_race_in_season = 2003 German 500 | Previous_year's_race = 1978 Brands Hatch Indy Trophy | Next_year's_race = Not Held

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