Wilson's height saves San Jose top four.

It is not often that Justin Wilson's height works for him after a career spent trying to squeeze his 6 foot five inch frame into cockpits designed for drivers eight to ten inches shorter.

But in Sunday's Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose, Wilson's height saved his fourth place finish after a track cleaner blew Wilson's front shock cover off its moorings. Still belted into his car and driving at 60 mph behind the pace car, Wilson was able to reach up and refasten his shock cover, saving himself a costly trip down pit lane for repairs.

Had Wilson been shorter, a pit stop would have turned a fourth place finish into a seventh or eighth place finish and with his three main title rivals all finishing on the podium, that could have spelled disaster. As it was, a hard days work from both driver and crew was rewarded with a healthy points haul.

The punishing 93-lap race around the tight, bumpy circuit claimed nine victims either to contact with the concrete walls or mechanical failure, Wilson's RuSPORT teammate A.J. Allmendinger among them.

After struggling to find a good set-up during practice and qualifying Wilson started ninth and faced a near impossible task of trying to pass the drivers ahead of him on a track too narrow and bumpy for overtaking.

Typically, he fought a determined race, staying out of trouble and positioning himself to take full advantage of his two pit stops, both of which saw the leading pack scrambling in for fuel and tyres under full course yellows. At the first stops on lap 28 RuSPORT's pit work got him out ahead of Timo Glock. Later, on lap 60, another excellent stop by the #9 crew allowed Justin to get past Mario Dominguez.

The final ten laps of the race saw a fierce battle between Oriol Servia in 3rd, Wilson in 4th, who in turn had Dominguez biting at his heels as they crossed the finishing line.

Considering the difficulties he'd faced earlier in the weekend, finishing a competitive fourth was a satisfying result. "This wasn't our best track, but we got out of it almost all that we could," said Wilson, who trails race winner Sebastien Bourdais by 41 points with six races remaining. "The track is so tight and so slippery with virtually no place to overtake. My Intel guys did fantastic pit stops and that gave us a position on each of the stops and that's where you really had to make the moves. A lot of today was about bringing the car home in one piece, and we did that for another top five finish."