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©1999 SpeedCenter Publishing Patrick Carpentier gave a first-hand demonstration of the Player's Forsythe Racing Team's commitment to road-course testing Tuesday when he paced 15 FedEx Championship Series drivers participating in the opening day of a two-day test at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The test, which concludes Wednesday, is being held to help drivers and teams preparefor the Aug. 15 Miller Lite 200 at Mid-Ohio, Round 14 of 20 in the FedEx ChampionshipSeries. Carpentier (Player's Forsythe Racing Team Ltd. Mercedes Reynard) recorded a lap of123.3 miles per hour (1 minute, 5.927 seconds) on his quickest trip around the 2.258-milepermanent road course. He topped 11 drivers who were grouped within one second followingmorning and afternoon practice sessions. In three years of FedEx Championship Series competition, Carpentier's best qualifyingefforts (poles at Nazareth and Milwaukee last year) and race results (runner-up atGateway in 1997) have come on ovals. But Player's Forsythe Racing has bolstered itscommitment to road-course testing this season, and Carpentier credits that for Tuesday's success. "I'm pretty happy," he said. "This is nothing official and hopefully we'll go quickertomorrow, but it's not something I'm going to take for granted. We've worked hard inthe off-season on road-course testing and we were decent from when we put the car on thetrack today. I really like it [at Mid-Ohio]. These are the types of tracks that I've beenraised on. The car was very smooth to drive here, not like before when I was fighting with it.Because of that I could get into a rhythm. These kinds of courses allow me to do that." Second-fastest Tuesday was Dario Franchitti (KOOL Honda Reynard) at 123.19 mph (1:05.981).He is the defending pole sitter at Mid-Ohio, and set the track record of 123.766 mph (1:05.679)during qualifying last year. "The grip was pretty low, but it was getting better as the day went along," said Franchitti,who stands third in the FedEx Championship Series driver standings with 85 points, 27 behindleader Juan Montoya. "We tested pretty well here two or three weeks ago so we're using whatwe learned today and combining that with the useful information from before. We're stillworking out a few bumps that we need to improve on and I'm sure we'll have a busy day aheadof us tomorrow." Jimmy Vasser (Target Honda Reynard) was third at 123.02 mph (1:06.077) followed byTony Kanaan (McDonald's Championship Racing Team Honda Reynard), at 122.75 mph (1:06.220)and Christian Fittipaldi (Big Kmart Ford Swift) at 122.32 mph (1:06.450). FedEx Championship Series leader Montoya (Target Honda Reynard), coming off Sunday'svictory at Cleveland, was sixth-fastest at 122.31 mph (1:06.458). Montoya holds a112-87 lead over second-place Gil de Ferran (Valvoline/Cummins Special Honda Reynard)in the FedEx Championship Series points standings heading into the July 11 Texaco/Havoline200 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. The remainder of Tuesday's participants included Mauricio Gugelmin (Hollywood PacWestMercedes), seventh-fastest at 122.15 mph (1:06.545); Bryan Herta (Shell Ford Reynard),eighth at 121.74 mph (1:06.770); Memo Gidley (Alpine Special Honda Reynard), ninth at121.73 mph (1:06.773); Richie Hearn (Budweiser Ford Swift), 10th at 121.66 mph (1:06.814);Greg Moore (Player's Forsythe Racing Team. Ltd. Mercedes Reynard), 11th at 121.53 mph(1:06.887); JJ Lehto (Visteon Ford Swift), 12th at 120.18 mph (1:07.633); GualterSalles (AAR/Denso Castrol Toyota Eagle), 13th at 119.17 mph (1:08.209); defendingMiller Lite 200 champion Adrian Fernandez (Tecate/Quaker State/Patrick Racing FordReynard), 14th at 118.85 mph (1:08.392) and Helio Castro-Neves (Hogan Motor Leasing,Inc. Mercedes Lola), 15th at 118.49 mph (1:08.602). Lehto was tabbed by Patrick Racing to test the Swift chassis at Mid-Ohio in orderto add to the team's information base as the chassis continues its road-courseevolution. The test continues Wednesday, with sessions scheduled from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.and 1:30 to 5 p.m. ET. Source: CART News Service | ||
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