PT Starts 2007 With Home Town
PT STARTS 2007 WITH HOME TOWN PODIUM
Las Vegas, Nevada โ April 8th, 2007 โ Starting on the front row in P2 Paul quickly jumped into the lead ahead of pole sitter Will Power. Paul ran in the front of the field for the first 11 laps before Power was able to pass back. PT continued to run in P2 up until he and Power’s first pit stop. But after a couple of unusually long pit stops due to concerns with proper fueling in the new DP01 car PT found himself further down in the running order. After pit stops cycled through PT once again found himself leading the race. On lap 56 he made a short fill stop of about 9 seconds but in doing so once again gave up the lead. In the new timed-race format of ChampCar PT would find himself in P3 when the clock ran out in his home town.
Paul: โIt went really well. Obviously, to lead the beginning of the race, I made a good start, was able to get by Will on the start. We spent a lot of the first part of the race under yellow. Then once we got going, I made a small mistake, hit the curb, the chicane, bounced up high off the ground. Will really capitalized off that, drafted up on me. I got a slow entry onto the straightaway. Really couldn’t put up much of a fight about it. Really, I just sat in behind him saving fuel. Came to the first stop glued to the back of him. We came in and did our first pit stop. The car didn’t take any fuel for us. We spent 15 seconds and ended up getting like four laps of fuel. So that was a bit frustrating. We came back out and chased, then had to come straight back in and take fuel again. That really took the fight out of the race I think for Will. I think we could have put a lot of pressure on him. Obviously, by then we were 45, 50 seconds behind him after doing another stop. We just had to fight, push hard all day, continue to catch people up, get by them. It was a good day for the Forsythe team and Monster Energy.โ