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©2001 SpeedCenter Publishing Oriol Servia has officially joined Chicago's FedEx CART team, Sigma Autosport, as it's driver for the imminent 2001 season. Servia, who finished second in the standings for CART Rookie of the Year for the 2000 season showed flashes of brilliance in his rookie campaign. His best finish, a third place result last year at the Detroit Grand Prix, proved to series watchers that the former Indy Lights Champion was ready to race on the world's most competitive open-wheel formula circuit-- CART. Servia's sizzling performance came on the same day Helio Castro Neves won Roger Penske's 101st victory. Paul Cherry Comments "Of course Sigma is very happy to have Oriol on board and testing successfully," said Paul Cherry, who is the team's Managing Director and Co-Owner. "Certainly many people in the fan and press sector speculated correctly that Oriol would be our driver but both parties had to make sure that we were in agreement on details----- and we are." Cherry went further in his comments about his second-year driver by saying that, " I have had nearly three years to watch Oriol progress from Indy Lights rookie, to Indy Lights Champion, and then into CART itself. He is very consistent, very demanding of himself and quite focused as one would expect." By telephone from England, Cherry said that he and Tom Wieringa are now relieved to be able to get on with preparing for the 2001 Season with a firm driver arrangement in place. Testing With the season only weeks away Sigma and Servia got right down to business with 200 miles of testing at the Homestead Motorports Complex on Thursday and Friday (Feb. 8 & 9). Servia fitted for his Sigma-Lola-Ford seat on February 2 in Chicago. He was able to jump right into the cockpit and get to work. Servia's best time was 27.3 around the 1.5 mile oval circuit Thursday (Sigma's e-team members were first to, learn about this when they received their email update). He was behind Michael Andretti by only 2/10ths of a second. On Friday, the team put in another 100 miles of testing at the speedway and the 27-year-old Catalonian (Oriol's native region of Spain and a personal sponsor of his racing career) registered a 26-second flat. Phil Howard Comments Team Manager Phil Howard was pleased with the first test saying, "We're fine with the first results especially considering that Oriol hasn't been in a car since he tested with Prost Grand Prix in mid-December." The Sigma Team Manager continued, "He turned in very competitive times here at Homestead so we are looking forward to getting to know him even better next week at Laguna Seca. He was very smooth here at Homestead and I think the entire team anticipates excellent results this year."
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