©1999 SpeedCenter Publishing
By Peter Burke, with photos by Phil Sedgwick
Thursday at 4pm in Homestead, the last engines stopped at CART Spring Training in Homestead. After two days of intensive testing, Patrick Carpentier recorded the fastest lap of the event. He was closely followed by his teammate Greg Moore and last year's Series runner-up Jimmy Vasser. Does this mean we have the season's top contenders identified?
There is more to a CART season than running fast on the Homestead oval. Otherwise Dario Franchitti, who many think may have a good chance at winning the '99 title, could be in real trouble, running over one second off the pace set by Carpentier. CART does not test on the road course at Homestead, leaving us at best with a glimpse of what might happen in the oval-heavy early part of the season.
Instead of some grand predictions for what might happen in '99, here are a few of the things SpeedCenter noticed this week in Florida:
Ganassi and Forsythe both were consistently tearing up the track with fast laps, finishing high in the speed charts. They had enough time to practice full race condition pit stop drills, and, as in Jimmy Vasser's case, to sit in the pits and coach a rookie teammate for much of the event. Ganassi seems to have only swapped Zanardi for a very fast rookie, with the rest of the team almost unchanged. Draw your own conclusions...
The Player's cars could become a real threat to Vasser this year if they can work out the issues that cost them points last year. More maturity throughout the team might help them turn this season into a good Forsythe/Ganassi battle.
Max Papis impressed. His owner Rahal spent a lot of time across the wall, hands-on and up close. It almost looked like he was ready
to take over in case one of his boys would not be able to drive. Papis got some real incentive to go fast when
Scott Pruett in his former Toyota ride ran faster than he did on Wednesday. Max did find the speed to stay on
top of Pruett, but both Arciero drivers looked very good on day one of Spring Training.
Gil de Ferran kept Goodyear tires near the front, while Andretti and Fittipaldi struggled to get the new Swift up to speed on the same rubber. Fernandez and PJ Jones had even more trouble getting speed out of their Swifts that roll on Firestones, ranking 20th and 21st respectively. Swift pilot Richie Hearn barely got only a few fast laps in his new Toyota powered Swift. The car was mostly in the garage. Once it even caught fire for a brief moment.
Al Unser Jr.'s lone Penske didn't show anything that would indicate a breakthrough for the team. The word in pit lane is that if they don't get results soon, they may switch to a customer chassis.
Tony Kanaan and his "drive thru crew" will probably qualify for the loudest paint job this year: the McDonald's logo and stripes are a bright day glow yellow that reminds of his former LCI paint. Tony ran close to the front of the pack both days and will have to be considered a contender for more than just a podium finish. The sound of the new Honda rev-limiter brings some variety to the pit lane audio festival. By thursday, some of the other Honda-powered cars seemed to employ a similar sounding device (much smoother than the old system)
The rookies this season are spread from seventh fastest to 28th fastest. Ganassi's Juan Montoya leads this group of drivers and is the only rookie in the upper half of the testing field. Christiano da Matta, Cal Wells' rookie jockey, put his Toyota midfield in 16th, while Naoki Hattori ran 19th in the second Walker Honda/Reynard. Shigeaki Hattori needed only 6 laps on Wednesday morning to destroy the Bettenhausen Reynard and force the team to pack and leave. His best laptime was 20 mph off the fastest lap of the test, but it apparently was too fast for his setup. Will anyone be able to challenge Montoya for the Rookie of the Year award?
Paul Tracy's replacement for Homestead, Raul Boesel, put in a solid run in 8th place overall. Last season, Tracy was 12th fastest at Spring Training. But such comparisons are rather pointless, given that last year's Spring Training results were rather different from the outcome of the first race as well as the season overall.
Robby Gordon and his new team were present, all showing off nicely embroidered team logos on white polo shirts. There was
no car to test yet,
so we'll have to wait for the season opener to see if Della Penna's Toyota/Swift teething problems were an exception.
One thing that can be concluded without doubt is that fans who made the trip to Spring Training got the best access to CART's cars and stars. There is no other place on CART's schedule where fans are allowed in pit lane during hot sessions, and get that close to drivers who also have plenty of time to respond to them. There was no racince action, but there were cars doing hundreds of laps, mock pit stops, tire change drills with air wrenches hammering every 60 seconds, lap after lap. Obviously, the great access is a direct result of the almost total absence of fans compared to a regular race weekend. If you have time to come down to Homestead in 2000, think about what you get to see, hear, and smell, while paying the lowest admission price of the entire season...
Photos from the event and a more comprehensive season preview will follow in a few weeks. There are some additional tests scheduled that may help us predict the season more accurately than by relying on Spring Training alone.
Combined Results CART Spring Training 1999
| pos | car | driver |
chassis engine tire |
laptime |
gap to fastest |
gap to next |
mph | km/h |
110% rule |
| 1 | 33 | Patrick Carpentier | RI/Mercedes/F | 24.962 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 216.617 | 348.537 | n/a |
| 2 | 99 | Greg Moore | RI/Mercedes/F | 25.055 | -0.093 | -0.093 | 215.813 | 347.243 | n/a |
| 3 | 12 | Jimmy Vasser | RI/Honda/F | 25.106 | -0.144 | -0.051 | 215.375 | 346.538 | 100.39% |
| 4 | 5 | Gil de Ferran | RI/Honda/G | 25.126 | -0.164 | -0.020 | 215.203 | 346.262 | 100.47% |
| 5 | 7 | Max Papis | RI/Ford Cos/F | 25.202 | -0.240 | -0.076 | 214.554 | 345.218 | 100.77% |
| 6 | 8 | Bryan Herta | RI/Ford Cos/F | 25.313 | -0.351 | -0.111 | 213.614 | 343.704 | 101.22% |
| 7 | 4 | Juan Montoya (R) | RI/Honda/F | 25.423 | -0.461 | -0.110 | 212.689 | 342.217 | 101.66% |
| 8 | 26 | Raul Boesel | RI/Honda/F | 25.439 | -0.477 | -0.016 | 212.556 | 342.002 | 101.72% |
| 9 | 2 | Al Unser Jr. | PC/Mercedes/G | 25.454 | -0.492 | -0.015 | 212.430 | 341.800 | 101.78% |
| 10 | 44 | Tony Kanaan | RI/Honda/F | 25.462 | -0.500 | -0.008 | 212.364 | 341.693 | 101.81% |
| 11 | 6 | Michael Andretti | SW/Ford Cos/G | 25.478 | -0.516 | -0.016 | 212.230 | 341.478 | 101.88% |
| 12 | 18 | Mark Blundell | RI/Mercedes/F | 25.544 | -0.582 | -0.066 | 211.682 | 340.596 | 102.14% |
| 13 | 11 | Christian Fittipaldi | SW/Ford Cos/G | 25.599 | -0.637 | -0.055 | 211.227 | 339.864 | 102.36% |
| 14 | 17 | Mauricio Gugelmin | RI/Mercedes/F | 25.617 | -0.655 | -0.018 | 211.079 | 339.625 | 102.43% |
| 15 | 24 | Scott Pruett | RI/Toyota/F | 25.667 | -0.705 | -0.050 | 210.667 | 338.964 | 102.63% |
| 16 | 25 | Cristiano da Matta (R) | RI/Toyota/F | 25.741 | -0.779 | -0.074 | 210.062 | 337.989 | 102.93% |
| 17 | 27 | Dario Franchitti | RI/Honda/F | 25.754 | -0.792 | -0.013 | 209.956 | 337.819 | 102.98% |
| 18 | 9 | Helio Castro-Neves | LT/Mercedes/F | 25.784 | -0.822 | -0.030 | 209.711 | 337.426 | 103.10% |
| 19 | 15 | Naoki Hattori (R) | RI/Honda/G | 25.977 | -1.015 | -0.193 | 208.153 | 334.919 | 103.87% |
| 20 | 2X | Al Unser Jr. | PC/Mercedes/G | 25.993 | -1.031 | -0.016 | 208.025 | 334.713 | 103.94% |
| 21 | 40 | Adrian Fernandez | SW/Ford Cos/F | 26.033 | -1.071 | -0.040 | 207.706 | 334.198 | 104.10% |
| 22 | 20 | PJ Jones | SW/Ford Cos/F | 26.056 | -1.094 | -0.023 | 207.522 | 333.903 | 104.19% |
| 23 | 36 | Alex Barron | EA/Toyota/G | 26.162 | -1.200 | -0.106 | 206.681 | 332.550 | 104.61% |
| 24 | 6X | Michael Andretti | SW/Ford Cos/G | 26.273 | -1.311 | -0.111 | 205.808 | 331.145 | 105.06% |
| 25 | 34 | Dennis Vitolo | RI/Ford Cos/F | 26.598 | -1.636 | -0.325 | 203.293 | 327.099 | 106.36% |
| 26 | 10 | Richie Hearn | SW/Toyota/F | 26.683 | -1.721 | -0.085 | 202.646 | 326.057 | 106.70% |
| 27 | 19 | Michel Jourdain Jr. | LT/Ford Cos/F | 26.801 | -1.839 | -0.118 | 201.754 | 324.622 | 107.17% |
| 28 | 16 | Shigeaki Hattori (R) | RI/Mercedes/G | 27.460 | -2.498 | -0.659 | 196.912 | 316.831 | 109.80% |
| 29 | 44X | Tony Kanaan | RI/Honda/F | 30.318 | -5.356 | -2.858 | 178.349 | 286.964 | 121.23% |
Laps Completed Chart
| Driver |
Laps completed |
| Alex Barron | 347 |
| Helio Castro-Neves | 263 |
| Greg Moore | 241 |
| Cristiano da Matta | 239 |
| Max Papis | 232 |
| Al Unser Jr. | 230 |
| Bryan Herta | 222 |
| Jimmy Vasser | 222 |
| Gil de Ferran | 201 |
| Juan Montoya | 198 |
| Scott Pruett | 192 |
| Naoki Hattori | 188 |
| Raul Boesel | 185 |
| Mark Blundell | 182 |
| Michel Jourdain Jr. | 181 |
| Mauricio Gugelmin | 174 |
| PJ Jones | 171 |
| Dennis Vitolo | 155 |
| Patrick Carpentier | 154 |
| Dario Franchitti | 153 |
| Tony Kanaan | 149 |
| Christian Fittipaldi | 145 |
| Adrian Fernandez | 137 |
| Richie Hearn | 107 |
| Michael Andretti | 80 |
| Al Unser Jr. (x car) | 51 |
| Michael Andretti (x car) | 21 |
| Shigeaki Hattori | 6 |
| Tony Kanaan (x car) | 6 |
