De FERRAN COLLECTS THIRD TOYOTA GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH POLE IN PAST FIVEYEARS
Gil de Ferran of Marlboro Team Penskecontinued his qualifying mastery on the streets of Long Beach on Saturdaywhen he earned his third career pole position for the Toyota Grand Prix ofLong Beach (5 p.m. ET Sunday, one-hour tape delay, ESPN).

De Ferran posted a lap of 104.969 miles per hour (1 minute, 7.494 seconds)on the reconfigured 1.968-mile temporary street circuit to earn his secondpole of the season and eighth of his career. It was his third at LongBeach, with the others coming in 1996 and '97, and tied him for the careerrecord for pole positions with Mario Andretti and Michael Andretti.

For Marlboro Team Penske, it was its first pole on a road or street coursesince Paul Tracy was the 1994 polesitter at Laguna Seca, a race he went onto win.

The championship point earned by de Ferran for the pole position breaks atie with the injured Patrick Carpentier (Player's Forsythe Racing Team FordReynard) and moves him into sole possession of fifth place in the FedExChampionship Series standings, with 11 points. Carpentier is sidelined fromthis weekend's event after sustaining a broken left wrist earlier this weekin an accident at his Las Vegas home.

Jimmy Vasser (Target Toyota Lola) of Target/Chip Ganassi Racing qualifiedsecond at 104.645 mph (1:07.703). He makes a career-best start at LongBeach, improving on third in 1996, when he drove to victory.

Defending FedEx Championship Series and race champion Juan Montoya (TargetToyota Lola) of Target/Chip Ganassi Racing qualified third at 104.213 mph(1:07.984). He will make his fourth consecutive top-three start, dating tolast year's season finale at California Speedway.

Rounding out the top five drivers were Adrian Fernandez (Tecate/QuakerState/Patrick Racing Ford Reynard) of Patrick Racing, fourth at 104.178 mph(1:08.007), and Bryan Herta (Avex Honda Reynard) of Walker Racing, fifth at104.170 mph (1:08.086). Fernandez was Friday's provisional pole-sitter at103.223 mph (1:08.636) while Herta turned in an outstanding drive as asubstitute for the injured Shinji Nakano, who is recovering from injuriessustained in a May 31 testing accident at The Milwaukee Mile.

FedEx Championship Series leader Max Papis (Miller Lite Ford Reynard) ofTeam Rahal qualified sixth at 104.057 mph (1:08.086). He holds a 20-16 leadover Roberto Moreno (Visteon Ford Reynard) of Patrick Racing heading intoSunday's 82-lap race, which takes the green flag at 4 p.m. ET. Morenoqualified eighth at 103.705 mph (1:08.317).

WHAT THEY SAID

    GIL DE FERRAN, Marlboro Honda Reynard: "It was a very nerve-wrackingqualifying session. Every time it looked like you had a good lap, somebodyelse would come along. The car's been handling quite well all weekend. Todaywe managed to get a reasonably fast lap, although I brushed the wall on myfast lap and it slowed me down a little bit. Tomorrow's a different day,these guys are pretty tough. Hopefully, I'm just going to disappear off atthe start and it will be the most boring race you've ever seen. But with allthese guys, I don't think that's going to happen."

    JIMMY VASSER, Target Toyota Lola: "It's been going pretty good. We've beenrunning a lot of old tires in practice so we hadn't done a lot of fast lapsin practice, but we were good in qualifying. We've got a good handle on thesetup of the car, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I think we've got ashot at the race win tomorrow. I'm pretty happy with the car and if we canjust keep the consistency, we should be there for the championship. We'vegot a great group of people on the race team. That gives us a lot ofconfidence. But you've got to give Chip Ganassi credit because he's madesome pretty bold decisions on the chassis and engine that don't seem soludicrous right now. But you still have to give most of the credit to theguys working under the tent."

    JUAN MONTOYA, Target Toyota Lola: "All weekend we were really strugglingwith the setup. (Engineer) Bill (Pappas) has been working really hard on thesetup. In qualifying, I was surprised how far I went. I thought it was goingto be a really tough time. "

WHAT'S NOTEWORTHY

* Gil de Ferran's (Marlboro Honda Reynard) pole was the first forMarlboro Team Penske on a temporary street circuit since Al Unser's atCleveland in 1994. It was also the ninth consecutive pole on a temporarystreet circuit for a Honda-powered driver, dating to Dario Franchitti's atAustralia in 1998.

* Jimmy Vasser's (Target Toyota Lola) start on the outside of thefront row is his first front-row start since winning the pole at Clevelandin 1998.

* By qualifying third, Juan Montoya (Target Toyota Lola) extended arun which has seen him qualify among the top eight drivers in 10 of 11 FedExChampionship Series appearances on road or street courses.

* Memo Gidley (Player's Forsythe Racing Team Ford Reynard) qualified10th at 103.393 mph (1:08.523). It was a career-best qualifying performancefor Gidley, who is substituting for the injured Patrick Carpentier, in his11th FedEx Championship Series start.

WHAT'S ON TAP

Qualifying for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach will air 1 a.m. ET Sundayon ESPN2. CART 2Day airs 10:30 a.m. ET Sunday on ESPN2. ESPN's racebroadcast, airing via one-hour tape delay, begins at 5 p.m. ET.


SpeedCenter FedEx Championship Series News And Information Service is an independent electronic publication and is not affiliated with, or sponsored by Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc., FedEx, or any other series sponsor.

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