Tracy runs dry.

Paul Tracy was left to rue a fuel gamble that didn't pay off after seeing a third podium finish of the Champ Car World Series season slip through his fingers at Surfers Paradise.

The Forsythe Championship Racing driver had qualified strongly on the Gold Coast to start the penultimate race from the second row of the grid and jumped into second when the lights went green for the standing start. However, it wasn't to last as contact from former team-mate Oriol Servia tipped the Canadian into a spin that dropped him to the rear of the field.

When the majority of the field elected to pit during an early caution period, Tracy - along with Robert Doornbos and Bruno Junqueira elected to stay on track and gamble on making only two stops, a gamble that looked set to pay dividends in the closing stages as the former champion ran in third place.

However, there proved to be not quite enough fuel to get him to the finish and the Canadian was forced into the pits at the start of the final lap for a splash and dash. As if that wasn't enough, he then stalled on pit lane and was only to bring the car home in ninth place.

"I made a good start, got off the line well, and then got squeezed in the first corner by Servia," he said. "We touched just a little bit and I spun and that put us at the back, so we basically had to get on a different strategy. We did that and were able to get back towards the front, lead a little bit, try to make the strategy work. We just needed half a lap more of yellow and it never came.

"The yellows were all falling our way in the beginning and the strategy was working well. We were maybe in a position to win the race. We were going to try to go for it, just try to run. We thought we could make it around maybe two-thirds of the last lap, but it ran out coming onto the front straightaway on the white flag lap, so I came into the pits and by the time I got into the pits I had run out of fuel in the pit box and it wouldn't start again.

"It's disappointing, but we were up there, we made something happen. We made good out of a bad start. The team is working really hard and we're getting back to where we should be finishing up on podiums. We just need some good luck."