TORONTO -- Following his victory at Cleveland last weekend, a national wire story made reference to Sebastien Bourdais' inconsistent season. Yeah, if three wins and four pole positions in nine races constitutes inconsistency, then this 24-year-old rookie from France must be guilty.

The truth is that Bourdais is the most impressive newcomer in Champ Car since Juan Pablo Montoya in 1999, and despite a pair of mechanical failures and a couple of bad calls on pit stops by his Newman-Haas team, he's still very much in the thick of the CART championship.

"That kid is the real deal," said veteran Paul Tracy after chasing Bourdais to the checkered flag in Cleveland. "He's got a lot of talent and he's always going to be a factor at every track."

Tracy, who leads the standings going into his home race at Toronto this Sunday, doesn't readily pass out compliments to other drivers -- but it's obvious Bourdais is special. The 2002 F3000 champion captured the pole in his CART debut (previously achieved only by Nigel Mansell in 1993), won his first oval-track start in Germany, and joined Montoya as the only rookie to conquer Cleveland.

"That was the toughest race I've ever been in," Bourdais said following the 115-lap, 242-mile, two-hour grind around the bumpy, fast Burke Lakefront Airport circuit in Cleveland. "My hands are blistered and it just physically wore me out and I'm in pretty good shape.

"Paul and I pushed 100 percent and even more throughout the race and I was proud to get my first win in the United States in a tough fight with him. It was awesome."

In a year where just about every driver has had a bone to pick with Tracy over blocking in qualifying, he and Bourdais haven't tangled. That's saying something, considering they've started four races together in the front row.

"I really want to say with Paul, there never has been any problem and I'm very proud of that," Bourdais noted. "Because obviously it looks like everybody's complaining about Paul. But I really have nothing to say about him. ... We never had any problem. I'm very glad of that.

"I'm just expecting it's going to continue like that and we're going to have a very good relationship together."

	Bourdais is currently fifth in points.

Because of his four DNFs -- including Laguna Seca, where he was running third when he lost boost pressure, and Portland, where he charged from last to fourth after a flat tire, only to be KO'd by mechnical problems -- Bourdais sits fifth in the standings.

Still, he's just 43 points behind Tracy with 10 races remaining.

"It was good to finally get a good result after a couple of bad ones," he said. "As tight as this series is, you can't afford many DNFs and we've already had four. So we really can't have any more if we want to win the championship."

The bespectacled native of Le Mans, nicknamed Kermit by his crew for the obvious frog reference, assumed defending CART champ Cristiano da Matta's ride and hasn't missed a beat. He's only qualified worse than fifth once (at Milwaukee), and for a driver seeing these tracks for the first time, he's been quite impressive.

Even though teammate Bruno Junqueira stands second in the points (eight behind Tracy) and was the only driver to keep da Matta honest in 2002, he's taken a back seat to Bourdais in terms of performance. Toronto will be his second street race.

"I've watched videos of past races at Toronto and it looks difficult but interesting," he said. "I know Newman-Haas (da Matta) won from the pole last year and also finished third, so you know we'll have a good setup.

"We've just got to keep pushing hard and trying to win."

Bourdais kiddingly credited his new paint job for his Cleveland success. McDonald's joined Lilly's as his sponsor and the car went from black and white to red and white.

"It looked like the black car was bad luck, but now it's gone and I'm glad," he chuckled.