MEXICO CITY -- In CART's 24-year history, only one driver has ever won six races and not earned the title. That was Bobby Unser, who lost out to teammate Rick Mears in 1979.

During the past decade Nigel Mansell (five), Jimmy Vasser (four), Jacques Villeneueve (four), Alex Zanardi (five) and Gil de Ferran (two) were crowned champions with less visits to victory lane than Unser or Paul Tracy, who already owns a half dozen wins in 2003.

Tracy doesn't want to join Unser in the history books but, going into Sunday's Gran Premio at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the 35-year-old Canadian's best-ever season in Champ Car still has him only 13 points ahead of Bruno Junqueira with three races remaining on CART's schedule.

A couple of major mistakes, including the last one at Miami two weeks ago, have put Tracy's breakthrough CART crown in jeopardy.

"We were fortunate that the problems we had in the last race in Miami didn't cost us big time in the championship," said Tracy, who scored zero points two weeks ago after driving into Sebastien Bourdais and knocking them both out.

"I know that we simply can't keep handing opportunities to people because sooner or later they're going to capitalize on them."

Maybe.

While Tracy, who also crashed on the opening lap at Elkhart Lake and suffered an engine failure while leading at Brands Hatch, England, has failed to take advantage of his dominance, his closest challenger hasn't exactly been opportunistic.

Junqueira should have left Florida no worse than one point out of the lead but he too had a brain fade at speed. Comfortably running second three-fourths of the way through the race, the 27-year-old Brazilian ran into the back of leader Adrian Fernandez and spun them both out.

	Bruno Junqueira hopes to climb past Paul Tracy in the final three CART races.

"I started to think about being called Mr. Consistency and that pissed me off because I want to win races so I went for it," explained Junquiera, who wound up ninth and got four points instead of 16. "But Paul was already out of the race and it was stupid because I could have left just one point behind him.

"Today hurt both of us but we'll know at the end of the season just how much."

Michel Jourdain also felt some pain at Miami but it wasn't as self-inflicted as his competition's. Third in the standings, Jourdain was leading the race when he made his final pit stop but banged into Tiago Monteiro and another team's tire as he exited the extremely narrow pit lane. CART officials sent him to the back of the lead pack and he finished seventh instead of first -- which cost him 14 points.

"From my point of view, I did everything I could to avoid contact and CART must remember that if we race on pit lanes this small then there are going to be issues," said Jourdain, a native of Mexico City with two wins in 2003.

"I was very disappointed by the decision of the officials and to effect our championship hopes, this hurts."

Having Jourdain go into his hometown only 19 points out of the lead wouldn't have hurt the crowd, which numbered more than 300,000 for three days in its inaugural show last year. As it turned out, Mexico still had plenty to shout about in Miami because Mario Dominguez wound up winning.

He will be one of six Mexican drivers in this weekend's lineup that include Robert Gonzalez, Luis Diaz, Adrian Fernandez, Rodolfo Lavin and Jourdain.

"It's very special to race in Mexico City and to have six of us competing should make for an even bigger crowd," said Fernandez, who needs police protection to get around here because he is Mexico's largest sports star.

The 2.7-mile road course is state of the art and offers challenges only found on one other track in the CART series.

"After Road America, it's my second favorite track because there are lots of fast corners and long straights," Junqueira said. "It is a long track and it's very difficult to put a good lap together. I just love it.

"For sure it's our biggest race of the year and I need to win the pole and the race to put some pressure on Paul."

Robin Miller covers open wheel racing for ESPN and ESPN.com.