Champ Car - 13th place is the best Heylen achieves at Zolder

For a moment it looked as though Jan Heylen was about to pull off a stunt. Having postponed his second pitstop, Heylen held second place for quite a while. Unfortunately the Belgian driver finally retrograded to thirteenth place. This was the outcome of an un-adapted strategy. French driver Simon Pagenaud (Team Australia) also experienced a wrong strategy, resulting in a rather modest twelfth place. It is possible that both drivers were counting on an extended safety-car intervention in the last faze of the race.

It was a highly difficulty weekend for the Belgian driver and Eric Bachelart's team. They achieved some good lap times, but also experienced a fair amount of bad luck. During Heylen's final pitstop the engine switched off – but it didn't influence his final ranking. Jan Heylen is now looking ahead to the 24 Hours of Zolder, on 8th and 9th September....an event he won back in 2005!

Three times champion Sebastien Bourdais, who also clocked up a historic pole, didn't give anyone the opportunity to lead the race during the first half. Not even Robert Doornbos (Minardi Team USA), who with each neutralisation was back up breathing down Bourdais' exhaust, without ever get ahead of him. By then it was pretty abvious that the Frenchman was the strongest driver on the track. Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne Racing) and Graham Rahal (Newman Haas Lanigan Racing) completed the podium. Doornbos (Minardi Team USA) could do no better than a seventh place.

VZW 24u.be - Gordon McKay on Sunday 26 August 2007 at 18:30.