Bourdais outlasts pack of rookies to grab pole

CLEVELAND (AP) — Sebastien Bourdais rolled his eyes and faked momentary despair when told he hadn’t broken the track record.

“Do I still get the point?” he asked.

Sure do. And the pole, too.

Bourdais, who has been turning Champ Car races into checker-flagged Sunday drives this season, won the pole for the Grand Prix of Cleveland by holding off rookie Simon Pagenaud and a pack of other first-year racers Saturday.

Flying around the 2.106-mile course laid out on the runways and taxi-ways of Burke Lakefront Airport, Bourdais had a best lap of 56.363 seconds — .080 seconds behind the track mark set by defending champion A.J. Allmendinger in last year’s qualifying.

In winning his 27th career pole, Bourdais received one point and now has 107 to lead Will Power by 13 in the overall championship standings.

Bourdais, seeking an unprecedented fourth straight series title, possibly could have lowered Allmendinger’s record, but a red flag with about four minutes remaining after Jan Heylen spun out in Turn 1 sent the field back to the pits.

Bourdais returned to the track for one last lap, but there wasn’t time to get his tires heated enough to take a crack at bettering Allmendinger.

Pagenaud in front row

Pagenaud finished in 56.388 seconds and will start on the front row alongside Bourdais, who surprisingly decided to take the outside lane for the first standing start in the race’s 26-year history.

Bourdais’ choice wasn’t an easy one. In addition to worrying about getting good traction, he had to weigh which lane would give him the best chance of getting through the track’s tricky Turn 1, a notorious hairpin where crashes are the norm.

“We’ve just got to be able to get that preferred line,” said Bourdais, whose 2006 race ended in a horrifying crash in the second turn.

But even if he’s first to the corner, that doesn’t guarantee he’ll be first past it. In recent years, aggressive drivers have barreled down the inside thinking they can squeeze through traffic only to smash into the rears of other cars or push them onto the dry and dusty infield.

Power in second row

Pagenaud’s teammate, Power, who will start in the second row next to rookie Graham Rahal, likes the idea of stalking Bourdais into Turn 1 and along a bumpy track where one small mistake can be costly.

“As you’ve seen in past years, there’s a lot of mayhem,” Power said. “I had a look at last year’s race and I counted every driver in the field made a mistake, spun or ran off, got hit off, whatever.”

Another rookie, Robert Doornbos will start in Row 3.

“They’re talented guys,” Bourdais said of Champ Car’s neophytes. “It doesn’t mean they’re beginners in open-wheel racing. They’ve been successful in any form of racing they’ve been involved in. They’ve done the whole loop. You don’t look at these rookies like rookies. You look at the rookies like opponents.”