2003 London Champ Car Trophy

The 2003 London Champ Car Trophy was the start of a two-week European stretch for the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series; the German 500 was held at EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Klettwitz, Germany one week later.^[1] It was the fourth round of the 2003 Champ Car World Series and was held at the Brands Hatch circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent on 5 May 2003.^[2] The British Formula Ford Championship, the British Touring Car Championship, Formula Renault, Porsche Cup and Renault Clio Cup UK held support races during the weekend.^[3] Entering the race, Paul Tracy led the Drivers' Championship with 64 points, ahead of Bruno Junqueira with 38 points and Michel Jourdain Jr. with 34. Adrián Fernández was fourth with 28 points, and Jimmy Vasser was fifth with 20 points.^[4] With 66 points, Lola led their rivals Reynard in the Manufacturers' Championship by 36 points.^[5]

CART had not visited Brands Hatch since 1978 when Rick Mears won for Team Penske.^[6] The series held two previous events in the United Kingdom at the Rockingham Motor Speedway in Corby, which was dropped from the season schedule in November 2002 because of poor attendance and inclement weather.^[1] Brands Hatch's return was publicly announced at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham on 9 January 2003, and it was held on the Indy configuration. CART president and CEO Chris Pook cited the track's proximity from London and the history of the Brands Hatch circuit as the primary reasons of hosting the race there.^[6] He also stated that the Brands Hatch Grand Prix configuration could not be used because of the high cost of upgrading it to CART standards.^[7] It was part of CART's desire to distance itself from the Indy Racing League by holding races outside the United States.^[8]

Brands Hatch and CART invested $2 million in enhancing the track's safety standards; 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) of fencing was erected around each side of the Indy layout, around 38,000 tyres were used to construct barriers and the majority of the guard-railing alongside the circuit was reconstructed. The improvements were completed on the day before the official announcement of the race.^[9] Tim Mayer, CART's international and development liaison officer, admitted more efforts were needed to upgrade the track to obtain an FIA Grade 2 licence for a potential future event on the Grand Prix layout and noted that its history had to be regarded when altering it for increased space:

"We have garages here that are twenty-six feet long and we have cars that are sixteen feet long and each team brings two cars. So you figure out very quickly that the garages are not big enough. You look at the paddock and realize that it’s going to be tight getting all our equipment in there. And of course we’ve done a lot of work to get enough barrier protection around the track. A lot of people have worked very hard to get it done."^[9]

Championship leader Tracy said he was excited to race at Brands Hatch and felt the circuit would be challenging to drive. He had won the previous three races of the season, and aimed to secure his fourth consecutive victory, but said he was not thinking about his recent success.^[10] After starting from pole position in two of the three opening rounds of the season but retiring from the lead in both races, Sébastien Bourdais of Newman/Haas Racing said he wanted to win the race because of its proximity to his home country France. He felt the two qualifying sessions would be influential in deciding its outcome and believed overtakes would be sparse.^[11] Walker Racing's Darren Manning said that he hoped he would perform well at the circuit since Brands Hatch was the only track on the CART schedule he had previously raced on.^[12]

There were three practice sessions preceding the race: two 50-minute sessions on 3 May and a third 75-minute session on the morning of 4 May.^[13] Manning lapped fastest in the first practice session at 37.953 seconds, ahead of Junqueira and Tracy. Tiago Monteiro spun at Surtees corner but avoided damaging his car. Fernández caused the session to be suspended when he spun backwards into a tyre barrier at Surtees corner, which caused heavy damage to his car's rear; he was unhurt.^[14] Tracy led the second practice session, at 37.263 seconds. Bourdais finished with the second-fastest time with Alex Tagliani in third. Junqueira and Manning were fourth and fifth, their best times two thousandths of a second apart. Two red flags came out during the session: the first was for Tracy who spun exiting Druids hairpin, removing the front wing of his car in a collision with a tyre barrier, the second when Tagliani spun at the pit lane entrance midway through practice.^[15][16]

Qualifying was split into two sessions; both sessions took place on Saturday and Sunday afternoon and lasted 60 minutes with one driver allowed on the track at any time. The Saturday qualifying order would be set in reverse of the day's earlier practice sessions with Sunday's running order based on Saturday qualifying results. Each driver was allowed four timed laps, and the starting order was determined by their fastest lap times. One championship point was available to the fastest drivers of both qualifying sessions. They were guaranteed to start on the front row of the grid for Monday's race. This was the first time this format was used on a road course in CART after drivers voiced concerns over their ability to achieve a lap time without encountering traffic.^[13] The first qualifying session had track temperatures lower than observed in the morning and drivers could not get the optimum tyre temperature. This meant they could only go faster on their final attempts.^[17]

Tracy took provisional pole by recording the only lap close to 36 seconds with a new track record of 37.006 seconds on his last attempt, 0.016 seconds ahead of Junqueira who led until Tracy's time.^[18][19][20] Junquiera's performance was compromised as he drove in an altered car that had better straightline speed but was slower in the corners. Bourdais ended the session third with Oriol Servià fourth and Manning fifth. Following him were the Canadian duo of Patrick Carpentier in sixth and Tagliani seventh.^[17] Fernández switched to a back-up car for the rest of the race meeting. His team altered its setup, but he used too much kerb at Clearways corner and was left eighth.^[21] Two other Mexican drivers, Jourdain and Mario Domínguez, were ninth and tenth.^[17] Vasser in 11th was followed by Monteiro and Mário Haberfeld.^[22] Alex Yoong recovered from gear linkage issues from practice, but an error at Druids hairpin left him 14th.^[23] Patrick Lemarié, Rodolfo Lavín, Joël Camathias and Roberto Moreno were in the next four provisional positions.^[22] Ryan Hunter-Reay did not set a lap after spinning on the front straight before starting his first timed lap. He was sent to the rear of the qualifying line and could not manage a second run.^[19] Monteiro and Camathias made two outings because of a miscommunication between their respective teams and completed three timed laps on the first runs. Both drivers were allowed back on the track later in the session and warmed up their tyres to gain the optimum running temperature. Monteiro and Camathias ran four out-laps before their final attempt.^[18]

In the third practice session, Fernández was quickest early on until Bourdais moved to the top of the time sheets. Tracy then took over the top spot, but Bourdais responded with a last minute lap of 37.379 seconds.^[24] Tracy was 0.120 seconds slower in second. Fernández and Servià were third and fourth and Junqueira fifth.^[25] Several incidents took place during the session. Lavin lost control under braking for Druids hairpin and was beached in the turn's gravel trap causing the session's first stoppage; he was imposed an eight-minute penalty. Yoong locked his brakes and struck the left-hand side tyre barrier at Druids hairpin, necessitating a second red flag. Camathias prompted the final stoppage after he spun at Clark Curve, which ended the session with two minutes left.^[24][25]

The weather was hot and sunny with a slight breeze, and it was expected that lap times would improve,^[27] since teams were more knowledgeable of the track conditions and more rubber had been laid on the racing line.^[28] Bourdais looked set to challenge Tracy, but he ran wide leaving Paddock Hill bend on his last qualifying lap and put the left-hand side of his car into the gravel, creating enough decompression to pull his hand off his steering wheel.^[27] When Tracy learned of this, he went slower and used scrubbed tyres to save an additional set for the race.^[28][26] Tracy thus took the 14th pole position of his career, his first since the 2000 Michigan 500, and his first on a road course since the 1994 Grand Prix of Monterey.^[29] Third-placed Junqueira altered his car, but the changes created excess understeer he and could not push hard.^[30] Servia remained in fourth position while Tagliani made downforce changes to his back-up car and moved from seventh to fifth.^[26][31] Fernández was another driver to move up two positions from his Saturday qualifying result and started sixth.^[28] He was followed by fellow Mexican Domínguez in seventh.^[32] Manning elected to push harder than any other driver but was unable to better his time and fell to eighth.^[27] Carpentier and Jourdain were ninth and tenth. Haberfeld gained two places from first qualifying to begin eleventh. Moreno was the biggest mover as he gained six places to 12th while Yoong took 13th. Following him was Vasser, Monteiro, Hunter-Reay, Lemarié and Camathias.^[28][32] Lavín was slowest overall and was on a faster lap when he made a minor driving error heading towards Clark Curve and lost around three-tenths of a second.^[33]

Qualifying results

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Q1 Time	Q2 Time	Best	Gap
1	3	Paul Tracy (CAN)	Forsythe Racing	37.006	43.133	37.006	—
2	2	Sébastien Bourdais (FRA)	Newman/Haas Racing	37.112	37.044	37.044	+0.038
3	1	Bruno Junqueira (BRA)	Newman/Haas Racing	37.022	37.225	37.022	+0.016
4	20	Oriol Servià (ESP)	Patrick Racing	37.254	37.442	37.254	+0.248
5	33	Alex Tagliani (CAN)	Rocketsports Racing	37.790	37.422	37.422	+0.416
6	51	Adrián Fernández (MEX)	Fernández Racing	37.871	37.468	37.468	+0.462
7	55	Mario Domínguez (MEX)	Herdez Competition	37.978	37.544	37.544	+0.538
8	15	Darren Manning (UK)	Walker Racing	37.565	37.596	37.565	+0.559
9	32	Patrick Carpentier (CAN)	Forsythe Racing	37.580	37.735	37.580	+0.574
10	9	Michel Jourdain Jr. (MEX)	Team Rahal	37.928	37.705	37.705	+0.699
11	34	Mário Haberfeld (BRA)	Mi-Jack Conquest Racing	38.199	37.719	37.719	+0.713
12	4	Roberto Moreno (BRA)	Herdez Competition	40.726	37.730	37.730	+0.724
13	11	Alex Yoong (MYS)	Dale Coyne Racing	38.233	37.865	37.865	+0.859
14	12	Jimmy Vasser (USA)	American Spirit Team Johansson	37.982	38.472	37.982	+0.976
15	7	Tiago Monteiro (PRT)	Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing	38.073	38.174	38.073	+1.067
16	31	Ryan Hunter-Reay (USA)	American Spirit Team Johansson	—	38.115	38.115	+1.109
17	27	Patrick Lemarié (FRA)	PK Racing	38.497	38.286	38.286	+1.280
18	19	Joël Camathias (SUI)	Dale Coyne Racing	39.212	38.290	38.290	+1.284
19	5	Rodolfo Lavín (MEX)	Walker Racing	38.803	38.423	38.423	+1.417
Sources:[22][32]

The drivers took to the track at 10:00 British Summer Time (BST) (UTC+1) for a 30-minute warm-up session.^[13] Weather conditions were overcast, and a slight wind could be felt. Drivers used the session to practice pit stops and scrub their tyres. Carpentier was running faster than in the previous two days and lapped fastest at 37.885 seconds. Bourdais continued his strong form by going second-fastest, and Hunter-Reay was third. Lemarié drifted wide onto the left-hand grass between the McLaren and Clearways corners. Camathias caused the session's sole stoppage by going straight into a gravel trap at Druids hairpin after locking his brakes. He required extraction by marshals to enable his return to the pit lane.^[34]