UPDATE Servia's prediction of drivers making mistakes in the Edmonton race due to fatigue proved prophetic. More than one driver reported their steering wheel felt very heavy by the end, winner Bourdais was physically spent and sat in his car for a minute before getting out, and both RuSPORT drivers, Tracy, Wirdheim and Vasser made errors. This Edmonton Sun
article has more information about Servia.
07/16/05 Oriol Servia was quite animated describing the Edmonton track to AutoRacing1.com after qualifying Saturday. "This track is the most challenging track we race on anywhere," raved Servia, comparing it to Spa in terms of difficulty. "This track is not only very technical, it takes lots of balls to go fast around here. Your arms get so tired and the car really beats up your body from the constant side-to-side pounding. I don't know how we're going to make the full race distance tomorrow. I think you are going to see drivers make a lot of mistakes as they fatigue.
It's very exciting and really fast. I think a lot of drivers got used to some of the easy tracks and this track is catching them out," said Servia in explaining why we are seeing so many accidents this weekend.
Asked what he thought about the success of this first year event, Servia said, "The fans are incredible here. Champ Car needs to figure out why this race is so successful and do the same thing everywhere."
Nelson Philippe gave a similar account of the new Edmonton track. "Yes, this track is very demanding," said Philippe. In qualifying yesterday my leg muscles were burning with fatigue just trying to brace myself in the cockpit, that's how hard this place is. The G forces are really high"
On the topic of passing, "Yes, there are three places you can pass here, going into turn 1, 10 and 11," said Philippe. Mark C.