Dominguez carries Rocketsports to podium.

In only his second race for the team, Mario Dominguez carried Rocketsports Racing to a first podium finish of the Champ Car World Series season at Surfers Paradise.

The Mexican driver secured a fine second place finish on the Gold Coast behind first-time winner Nelson Philippe while Antonio Pizzonia ensured it was a double top ten finish for the team as he claimed tenth.

The second place finish handed Dominguez 29 points, along with earning extra points for leading a race lap and being the most improved car in today's race. On Lap 43, he took the lead for one lap before making his final pit stop of the day, which put him back out in the second spot. Dominguez moves into the sixth spot in the championship standings with a total of 198 points with one race left this season.

"I couldn't be happier to get a podium over here for two special reasons," he said. One, because I love it here in Australia. It's beautiful, they treat us so well. They treat the drivers as we're really superstars. And, second, because this is the one race before Mexico City, and we get a lot of momentum going for us when we show up there, so I'm very, very motivated.

"It's only my second race with Rocketsports Racing so it is a great result for the team as we continue to develop our relationship together. And with everything that's going on with me this year, this has to be the worst year of my life. Thus, making this is a great podium.

"It was a great race with Nelson. He deserves to win. He did not make any mistakes. We raced hard, but clean. That's what racing is all about. At one point I thought I had him, but he did a good job and he's a good friend, so I'm happy for him."

Pizzonia lead a total of eight laps, during Laps 44 to 51, in only his third Champ Car race, but a gamble on pit strategy didn't work and left the Brazilian to settle for tenth on his third appearance of the season.

"It was another difficult race for us," he said. "We had problems throughout the afternoon with the brakes in the #18 Lexington Energy Services car. It was an ongoing issue that we have been dealing with since yesterday, and continued to experience this morning. We are still not sure what was causing this problem and it made for a hard race for me, but we did the best we could.

"In the end, we were trying to take a gamble with our race strategy, but it just did not work out for us. I learned a lot from this experience, and I will take that with me and hopefully be able to use that knowledge in the future."