MONTREAL -- Toronto's Paul Tracy shared a podium with two drivers from France -- Sébastien Bourdais and Nelson Philippe -- and all three were smiling.
Bourdais won the rain-delayed Montreal Champ Car Grand Prix yesterday and stretched his commanding lead in the drivers' standings to 62 points over his closest rivals, American A.J. Allmendinger and Justin Wilson of Britain, who both failed to finish.
Tracy came in second, but the boos and chants of "Tracy go home" he had heard all weekend turned to cheers as he took the podium draped in a Quebec flag.
Philippe finished third despite an early spin-out.
"I had my best weekend here ever," said Tracy, who arrived as the villain in mostly French-speaking Montreal. He had altercations in two previous races with Bourdais and Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, Que., and made a wisecrack that "French guys keep their helmets on" when they fight.
"I had a good time this weekend with the crowd, and the crowd had fun with me," Tracy added. "We turned a negative into a positive."
The fifth and likely the last Champ Car race at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve turned into a two-day affair as pounding rain washed out the track after only six laps on Sunday. It resumed yesterday with Allmendinger having taken the lead from Bourdais, but the American who calls Toronto home retired with a mechanical breakdown on the 14th lap, handing Bourdais a lead he relinquished only briefly during pit stops.
Tracy, Allmendinger's Forsythe teammate, stayed behind him all the way. But he was never able to catch Bourdais even though caution flags regrouped the field several times as drivers struggled with a moist surface.
"Every time we had a yellow flag we were able to pull away," Bourdais said.
There was a moment of drama at the end as a yellow flag erased Bourdais's nine-second lead and brought the cars together for one final fast lap. But the Frenchman wasn't threatened and beat Tracy by 1.398 seconds.
It didn't rain on the second day and there were many empty seats in the grandstands, but the track was wet enough to claim some prominent cars.
Wilson hit a wall on the 47th lap and was gone. The champions in Montreal the past two years -- Oriol Servia and Bruno Junqueira -- also hit concrete. Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., smacked a wall on lap 39.
Bourdais sailed through without incident for his sixth win of the year and the 22nd of his career. He earned the maximum 34 points -- 31 for the win, one each for placing first in both qualifying sessions and another for posting the fastest lap.
He also took a big step toward clinching a third consecutive Champ car title with only three races left to run.
Philippe moved into a distant fourth place in standings, two points ahead of Tracy, who earned his 72nd podium, tied for fourth on the career list with retired star Rick Mears.
Bourdais and Tracy were no more than civil on the podium, but that's an improvement over their relations in recent weeks.
At the previous race in Denver, Tracy bumped Bourdais off the track on the final lap, handing Allmendinger a big win. After Tracy's crack about French guys and helmets, Bourdais urged Montreal fans to boo him, which they did from the first practice session on Friday morning.
And before the start of the race on Sunday, he wore a blue pro wrestlers mask with a Quebec flag as a cape, turning many boos into either cheers or laughs.
He wore the flag onto the podium and there wasn't a single raspberry.
"I gave it to the fans at the end," he said with a laugh. "They had a fight over it. It was good to watch. No helmets in that fight."