Bourdais takes blame for Sato clash

The four-time Champ Car title-winner qualified a disappointing 16^th but went for the early pitstop strategy and worked his way up to fifth in the final stint, in the wheeltracks of Takuma Sato’s AJ Foyt Racing-Honda.

However, as they approached the Turn 4 braking zone on the 87^th of 90 laps, he moved to the inside to pass Sato just as the Japanese driver turned in for the right-hander. The resulting clash took them both off track. Sato got going again to finish ninth, but Bourdais was embedded in the sandtrap and tumbled to 20^th because of the low attrition rate in today’s Honda Indy 200.

Said Bourdais: “After a frustrating qualifying yesterday, we managed to find ourselves up front today after a good strategy call. “Unfortunately, five laps from the end I felt I had a shot to get into the top four. I haven't seen the replay, but I guess I just got frustrated and missed my braking point when I was close behind Takuma. He braked and I tried to brake later and unfortunately I touched him.

“My bad to Takuma. The Hydroxycut car was good and I was growing increasingly frustrated not to be able to make use of it because he was not very fast. It just tipped me over the edge and I made a mistake.

“I feel bad for the Hydroxycut guys. They did a good job in the pits and deserved a better result. We'll just have to regroup now and see what we can do in the last four races of the season.”