It was a fitting end to a remarkable Champ Car World Series career for two-time Gold Coast Indy 300 champion Sebastien Bourdais (#1 Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing), as he claimed the 31st win of his Champ Car career in the Gran Premio Tecate presented by Banamex in Mexico last weekend.

Despite the fact that he was penalized 22 seconds off his originally allotted 75 seconds of 'Power To Pass' for an infraction during the Sunday morning standing start practice session, Bourdais started second and calmly stalked polesitter and race leader Will Power (#5 Team Australia) through the early stages of the race.

Bourdais made his move on the Australian rising star on Lap 24, taking advantage of his 'Power To Pass' to sweep into the lead. The quadruple Champ Car champion retained the lead through both rounds of pit stops. Bourdais was never challenged on his way to victory and finished 1.906 seconds clear of Power to claim his eighth win of 2007.

The eight victories for Bourdais this season was a personal best, topping the 2004 and 2006 championship-winning seasons in which he earned seven wins in each season. It also moved him into a tie for fourth place on the all-time list of Champ Car victories in a single season.

Bourdais clinched his unprecedented fourth Vanderbilt Cup in the penultimate round on the streets of Surfers Paradise and closed out the year - and his Champ Car career - with a total of 364 points. He finished 83 points ahead of Justin Wilson (#9 RuSPORT).

Power wrapped up a breakthrough Champ Car season with a second-place result, his best result since a victory in July at Toronto. It was the Team Australia driver's fifth podium result of the season, in which he also claimed his first career Champ Car victory in the Las Vegas season-opener. Power finished the year fourth in the championship standings, two positions better than his previous career-best points result of sixth, which he achieved in 2006.

Although he stalled his car on the race's standing start and fell to the rear of the field, Oriol Servia (#22 PKV Racing) capped a season that he began without a ride by charging to his third podium result of the season with a third-place performance in Mexico City.

American rookie Graham Rahal (#2 Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing) secured fifth place in the final Champ Car World Series point standings with a fourth-place performance.

Rounding out the top five was Paul Tracy (#3 Forsythe Championship Racing), who had by far his best permanent road course performance of the season in Mexico. Despite missing two races throughout the year, he wound up the year 11th in the championship standings.

In 2008, the Gold Coast Indy 300 set to again be the penultimate round in the championship on October 23 – 26.

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