CART review of round 5: Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca. Story and images by Mike Veglia.
Beautiful late spring sunny skies and moderate temperatures made for a great race weekend at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca. Historically, CART events at this track have been in Fall. Due to juggling of the 2002 season schedule the race was moved to June 7-9. Despite this move in schedules a decent crowd was on hand come race day and were treated to a great road race. Those who don't understand the nuances of road racing would no doubt call this one a 'yawner'. Those who do understand would call it a great victory for Cristiano da Matta and the entire Newman-Haas team with strong performances and exciting strategies playing out over the course of the race.
Flash back to the CART sneak preview in February at this very same track. All CART teams ran four sessions. In all four of these sessions Cristiano da Matta topped the time sheets. This was an omen of things to come this past weekend. On Friday da Matta once again was atop the time sheets for practice and looked to be odds on favorite for pole. However, in the first day qualifying session that afternoon it was Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Kenny Brack who took provisional pole with da Matta running a close second.
On Saturday da Matta once again was fastest in practice. Qualifying that afternoon proved to be interesting, and exposed a potential weakness in CART qualifying rules. After posting the fastest time for provisional pole da Matta's engine let go with 5 minutes left in the session. Rather than pull the car off and bring out a red flag on the session da Matta drove the car around the course to the pit lane, spewing smoke and oiling down the course along the way. Cries of foul ensued from other drivers and team owners, but Cristiano's point was what else could he do? Reason being CART's rule that stipulates any driver who causes a red flag in a qualifying session must sit out 10 minutes of the session and their top time doesn't count. With pole in hand and 5 minutes to go in the session da Matta had little choice if he wanted to keep his pole winning time. CART allowed his time to stand, but his wallet was lightened to the tune of a $10,000 fine.
The race started off with opening lap excitement that affected roughly one third of the field in a massive multi-car off. Two cars (Dario Franchitti and Adrian Fernandez) were unable to continue due to heavy damage. The remainder of those affected by the incident made it back on course, with help from the CART safety team. Once racing resumed under green flag conditions da Matta took off and was never really threatened the rest of the way. In the middle stages of the race another full course caution was brought out by Paul Tracy's car loosing a wheel right after his pit stop shunting him into the turn 4 tire wall. Things were getting interesting at the front after the restart with da Matta getting stuck in traffic and second place Kenny Brack closing the gap quickly. In the end da Matta's Newman-Hass Racing teammate Christian Fittipaldi managed to get by Brack for second spot to bring home a one-two finish for the great CART team once created for Mario Andretti.
Cristiano da Matta's win vaulted him back atop the points lead. The CART season will get hot and heavy with race weekends almost every week for several weeks in a row. Next stop is Portland, another natural terrain road course where things may very well go the same way for da Matta. Right now he looks like the man to beat on road circuits in this series.
CRISTIANO DA MATTA:
For me it was a perfect day. I was of course worried about the start, but I had a couple of very good guys around me like Kenny, Bruno [Junqueira], Christian and Tony [Kanaan]. I was a little bit worried about the start, but I managed to get a good one. In the first stint it was quite close, the second stint my car was very good. I was able to run away. On the third stint I had a little bit of a problem. We tried to make a couple changes in the car but we still don't know what happened, but I lost some speed in that stint. And it was a critical moment because at speed that my car wasn't running great. It was probably my weakest stint. At the same time I caught traffic and I didn't have enough performance to get very close and to fight the traffic. So we had to change our strategy a little bit and pit a little earlier because there was a big line of cars in front of me at the second point. And after that, after we pitted again I had to manage to put a couple of quick laps together because I knew Kenny and Christian were still out on the track. So I had to avoid them to put too much of advantage on me while I had cold tires. We managed just to go out of the pits ahead of them. And after that, I was pretty comfortable because I think it was their time to catch the traffic and for me it was a little bit easier to control the difference. And my car was back to the way it was in the beginning of the race and in the second stint. So I was able to relax a little bit and control the gap a little bit better.
Race Results:
1 Cristiano da Matta Toyota/Lola
2 Christian Fittipaldi Toyota/Lola
3 Kenny Brack Toyota/Lola
4 Bruno Junqueira Toyota/Lola
5 Patrick Carpentier Ford-Cosworth/Reynard
6 Scott Dixon Toyota/Lola
7 Townsend Bell (R) Toyota/Reynard
8 Jimmy Vasser Ford-Cosworth/Lola
9 Michel Jourdain Ford-Cosworth/Lola
10 Alex Tagliani Ford-Cosworth/Reynard
11 Michael Andretti Honda/Lola
12 Tony Kanaan Honda/Lola
13 Max Papis Ford-Cosworth/Lola
14 Shinji Nakano Honda/Lola
15 Mario Dominguez (R) Ford-Cosworth/Lola
16 Toranosuke Takagi Toyota/Reynard
17 Paul Tracy Honda/Lola
18 Adrian Fernandez Honda/Lola
19 Dario Franchitti Honda/Lola
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