America’s Champ Car series is claiming a victory over formula one after defending champion Sebastien Bourdais broke a formula one record during testing at the Laguna Seca track.
Whilst testing the open wheeler series’ new Panoz single seater at the venue near Monterey, in California, the Frenchman beat the lap time set by Toyota’s Ricardo Zonta last year.
Bourdais’s lap of 1.05.880 compared with Zonta’s 1.06.309.
A report on the Champ Car website read: “Bourdais was given a cheque for $5,000 by the series for breaking the mark, as Champ Car posted an Old West-style bounty on the record.”
Last August, Brazilian test driver Zonta – in a 2005-spec formula one car – was doing demonstration runs as part of the ‘Monterey Historic Automobile Races’ when he set the record.
