Racing briefs for August 1, 2005

Monday, Aug. 1, 2005 | 9:23 a.m.

Raikkonen ditches hard luck in Hungary

At Budapest, Hungary, Kimi Raikkonen and his mercurial McLaren racer finally avoided misfortune, using the pits to perfection and racing away from Michael Schumacher at the Hungarian Grand Prix for his fourth victory of the season.

On a hot day in the Hungarian hills where track temperatures approached 113 degrees, Raikkonen finished 35.5 seconds ahead of Schumacher, a pole-sitter for the first time this season. Ralf Schumacher was third, 36.1 seconds back.

"It was really the pit stops that decided it," Schumacher said.

The turning point came after the second pit stop. Separated by less than a second, Schumacher pitted on lap 36 and Raikkonen a lap later.

Raikkonen opted to add only a little fuel, and the strategy worked. He came out of the pits just ahead of Schumacher and started padding the lead by nearly two seconds a lap.

"It was a combination of things," Schumacher said. "At this stage, he was at least a second quicker. Then I had some traffic."

Bourdais wins inaugural race

At San Jose, Calif., Sebastien Bourdais' mechanics spent hours virtually rebuilding his No. 1 Lola so it could endure the roughest race track the series has ever seen.

Bourdais paid back his crew with an almost perfect race, leading 63 of 93 laps to win the inaugural San Jose Grand Prix. His second victory in a row and third of the season solidified his hold on first place in the season standings.

"I think I was in the preferred position, but it was not an easy day," said Bourdais, who started from the pole.

The combination of a washboard-like track and looming concrete walls on the narrow downtown street circuit took out half the 18-car field during the 75-minute, timed race. But Bourdais, the reigning series champion, managed to avoid the pitfalls and came away with the 13th victory of his 2 1/2-year career.

"The track is really challenging, definitely the roughest one we've ever been on," Bourdais said. "We broke something on the car every time we went on the track. They wanted to make sure the car stayed together.

"The team decided to completely rebuild it overnight. Then, after we broke a suspension piece in the morning (warmup), they fixed it and figured out why it happened. The car stayed together all day. It was like a tank."

Kalitta moves to top in Top Fuel

At Sonoma, Calif., Doug Kalitta took over the points lead in Top Fuel with his fourth win of the season at the FRAM Autolite NHRA Nationals at Infineon Raceway on Sunday.

Kalitta had 4.665-second run at 319.90 mph to beat Doug Herbert's 4.603 at 319.98 for his fifth victory at Infineon. He moved 16 points ahead of Tony Schumacher in the standings.

Gary Scelzi, Greg Anderson and Andrew Hines also were winners at the $1.5 million race.

Scelzi cut Robert Hights series lead to 16 points with his third Funny Car win of the season. He had a run of 4.984 at 295.21 to defeat teammate Ron Capps (5.079 at 293.60) for his 32nd career victory.

Anderson regained the series lead in Pro Stock with his fourth victory of the season and the 35th of his career with a 6.732 at 205.63 to outrun Kurt Johnson's 6.760 at 204.23.

Hines turned in a national record performance in Pro Stock Motorcycle, powering to a final run of 7.253 at 186.46 to beat Karen Stoffer's 7.343 at 181.64.

-- Sun wire services