MEXICO CITY (November 16, 2002) - Target Chip Ganassi Racing pilot Bruno Junqueira (#4 Target Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone) of Belo Horizonte, Brazil turned the fastest lap in a highly eventful final qualifying session for tomorrow's Gran Premio Telemex-Gigante Presented by Banamex/Visa, but it would ultimately be the quick time he set in yesterday's provisional qualifying that earned him his fourth pole and sixth front-row start of the 2002 season.

The top-three spots remained unchanged from Saturday's first Champ Car qualifying session with Junqueira leading the way, followed by Christian Fittipaldi (#11 Lilly Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone) of Newman/Haas Racing and Team KOOL Green's Dario Franchitti (#27 KOOL Honda/Lola/Bridgestone). Warmer weather conditions and three red-flag situations never allowed the thoroughbred racing machines to put together lap times that would eclipse yesterday's postings.

The major beneficiary of the offbeat session was Tony Kanaan (#10 Pioneer/Worldcom Honda/Lola/Bridgestone) of Mo Nunn Racing who turned in a fast time of 1:26.394 (116.091 mph/186.831 km/h) to pip 1996 CART champion Jimmy Vasser (#8 Shell Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) of Team Rahal for the fourth starting position. Vasser will start fifth on the strength of his time of 1:26.703 (115.678 mph/186.165 km/h), even after he sat out final qualifying due to mechanical difficulties which sidelined him in the pre-qualifying practice session.

Walker Racing's Tora Takagi (#5 Pioneer/Denso Special Toyota/Reynard/Bridgestone) had a strong showing, turning the fastest lap 20 minutes into the scheduled 35-minute session. But after Franchitti edged him out for the spot on the speed chart, Takagi locked up the brakes hard and took a long, lazy sideways slide off course in Turn 16 that brought of the day's first stoppage.

After the green flag waved to resume the action, Kanaan wasted no time getting to the point, turning in a personal best lap with just eight minutes to go. But shortly after the flyer, Paul Tracy (#26 KOOL Honda/Lola Bridgestone) of Team KOOL Green pulled off course in Turn 11 and exited his smoking vehicle, but not before laying down fluid on the racing line. Much to his dismay, teammate Franchitti suffered as a result of the track conditions, motoring through the area at speed and spinning off course into the Turn 11 barrier. As a result, Franchitti's machine sustained right-front and right-side damage and the session was halted once more with just 2:44 of green-flag time left.

Just after the session was restarted for the second time, Junqueira clocked in at 1:26.126 (116.703 mph/187.815 km/h) on his eighth of 15 allotted laps, a time that would prove to be tops in the second qualifier.

The red flag waved shortly after Junqueira's hot lap for a third and final time as recently-crowned 2002 CART FedEx Championship Series champion Cristiano da Matta (#1 Havoline Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone) of Newman/Haas Racing spun in Turn 14 entering the unique baseball stadium portion of the 2.75-mile Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Da Matta, who authored seven poles and as many wins this season, could not deliver another top spot and starts a season-worst 12th tomorrow.

The green flag made its final appearance with 41 seconds a minute remaining and offered the other competitors little hope of overtaking Junqueira's fast time. Junqueira earned his second championship point of the weekend after pacing provisional qualifying and will start tomorrow with his sights on edging out Patrick Carpentier (#32 Player's/Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone) of Player's/Forsythe Racing, who qualified seventh, for second in the championship and the $500,000 prize that goes with it. Junqueira leads Carpentier by 5, followed by Franchitti just 12 markers back.

The CART FedEx Championship Series Gran Premio Telemex-Gigante Presented by Banamex/Visa will take place Sunday afternoon, starting at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time and will be shown live on SPEED Channel.

CART MEXICO CITY SATURDAY QUOTEBOARD

JIMMY VASSER (#8 Shell Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "The engine blewand rather than risk our time from yesterday, we decided to just wait it outand see if anybody would go faster. Nobody did, so we're starting fifth,which isn't too bad."

MICHEL JOURDAIN JR. (#9 Gigante Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone: "This was avery bad day. We had problems with the primary car, and we switched to thebackup. We were able to get one lap in, and every other time we had a lap,there was a red flag. I'm disappointed, but we've had success from thesepositions before, so we'll be ready for tomorrow."

LUIS DIAZ (#51 Tecate/Quaker State/Telmex Honda/Lola/Bridgestone): "It wasa very difficult session because the gearshift lever on the primary carbroke. I felt the car was very reasonable on my first couple of laps. Istarted to get into the speed and unfortunately the lever broke. I switchedcars and the team did a great job there. It was my very first time to switchcars like that so it was new to me. At the beginning, with the backup car, Iwas afraid because the brake pedal felt a lot different than the other carand I was not very comfortable about that. But when I went out, I felt thecar was very good, very strong. Unfortunately we didn't have a clear lap toimprove. I think tomorrow we are going to have a good race. This has been abig step for me because everything is bigger - the car and the horsepower.The drivers that are here are here for a reason. They are the best of thebest. Everything is more competitive and harder both physically andmentally. I will learn a lot from the experience this weekend, and I am veryglad to be learning from Adrián and to have his support. I like this racetrack a lot. It is not the same as when I used to race here with the newcomplex, but it is beautiful. I love this track. I have good memories* fromhere and I am very happy to be here."

SHINJI NAKANO (#52 Alpine/Mistuba Honda/Lola/Bridgestone): "I didn't have agood car in qualifying. We couldn't find a good setup and then we had a lotof red flags. There were really no clear laps basically. I had a bigundersteer and oversteer and we couldn't find grip on the front or the rear.That's what we have to find for tomorrow. We need to find the setup to gofaster tomorrow."

MICHAEL ANDRETTI (#39 Motorola Honda/Lola/Bridgestone):"The Motorola car isreally good. I think we were capable of being in the top three today, butunfortunately all the reds messed us up. We found a good setup right beforequalifying and every time we were on a fast lap, the red flag came out.It's really disappointing that the rules changed during the session. Wethought we would have one more timed lap based on how CART handled theprevious red flag but that wasn't the case. It's a shame because I know thecar was good enough that we would have improved our time in that one lap."

PAUL TRACY (#26 KOOL Honda/Lola/Bridgestone): "I had a good out lap and agood fast lap going when we had a problem. The good news is we've beenstruggling withthe KOOL car all weekend and it looked like we'd finally madesome improvements for qualifying. I didn't get much time on the track, butit felt better and I was looking for a good lap to try and move up some onthe grid. I'm glad we were at least able to maintain eighth place. We'lljust keep working on it in warm-up tomorrow and hopefully have a good carfor the race."

ORIOL SERVIA (#20 Visteon/Patrick Racing Toyota/Reynard/Bridgestone): "TheVisteon/Patrick Racing Team improved the car today. We are now running witheverybody else. Yesterday, we were running a completely different race thaneverybody else. Now we are running the same race, we are just in the backof the grid. The Visteon/Patrick Racing Team is not where we want to be,but we improved the car a lot considering where we were. Now we need tomake the same amount of improvement before tomorrow that we made fromyesterday to today. It is a long race and it is very easy to make a mistakeat this track, especially on the back part of the circuit. So just aboutanything can happen. The key right now is to find some more front grip andimprove the car because if we have a good car we can still have a good race.The other thing is, once again, I will be counting on Mr. Patrick and JimMcGee to come up with a race strategy that will help me move-up to the frontin the race. We have done it before and I am confident we can do it again."

BRUNO JUNQUEIRA (#4 Target Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone): "It feels great to beon the pole again today. The conditions were much more difficult today thanthey were yesterday. There were a lot of red flags and the track was veryslippery when Paul(Tracy) lost his engine. I can't say enough about TeamTarget. They have worked very hard not only this weekend, but all yearlong. I hope that we can have a good race tomorrow and win the last race ofthe year."

KENNY BRACK (#12 Target Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone): "Today was a very messysession. We had a lot of different messages coming from race control, itwas hard to follow what was going on. Overall, it was a successful sessionfor the Target team. We improved the car a lot from yesterday and we have agood car now. I'm very happy with the progress that we've made so far thisweekend. I got one good lap in, but the red came out on one that was evenfaster. It could have been better for us, but we're now on the righttrack."

SCOTT DIXON (#44 Target Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone): "It was a difficultsession for us, because we never got the lap in that we needed to. Our caris better than the time that we posted. We qualified 15th in Mid-Ohio andmoved up to finish 5th. So, although I wanted to qualify a lot better, westill have a chance to have a strong finish."

PATRICK CARPENTIER (#32 Player's/Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone):"Bruno has been really quick this weekend, but I still have high hopes. I'mcertainly not conceding anything. It's a long race and anything can happen.I want to finish the season strongly, so we'll give everything we have andsee what happens."

ALEX TAGLIANI (#33 Player's/Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Reynard/Bridgestone): "Thecar setup seems great, so I have no worries about that going into the race.The way it performed today, I'm even more confident than I was yesterday.This track is a bit like Road America, where you have a very long straightat the start, and you never know what can happen. It's a race that's toughon equipment, and car reliability is going to be a big factor."

CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI (#11 Lilly Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone): "Qualifyingwasn't that big of an effort today because of all of the red flags thatstopped the session. I'm pretty happy to be starting in the front row butunfortunately things didn't go as planned and I didn't get to go for poleposition. I was really happy with the car this morning. I thought when itcame down to the time to qualify, we had a good shot at it. Unfortunatelyit didn't go as planned and I didn't get to try for it. Things happened inthe session that I didn't understand which added to the frustration. Likewhen the green flags came out after the red flags. No one was able to getinto a rhythm and put any laps together. I will drive my very best tofinish as good as possible tomorrow since I'm not going to be in CART nextyear. I hope everyone can be civilized going into the first turn. Thereare a lot of guys that are going to be pushing as hard as they can becauseit's the last race. I'm sure it's going to be a fun race to drive and towatch."

CRISTIANO DA MATTA (#1 Havoline Toyota/Lola/Bridgestone): "When we lostour 26.6 lap time on Friday because of Michel's red flag, I hoped itwouldn't rain today so we could try to set a better time. Then the trackwas slower today and all of the red flags kept us from trying to better ourtime. Losing our 26.6 and fourth place (from Friday) hurt us again today.The red flag I caused today wouldn't have even changed that. Fourth place ismuch better than twelfth. On my first run I wasn't very happy but the trackgot a lot worse. There was a lot less grip. Then on my second set of tiresI never got a run because of all of the red flags. I don't think we are ingood shape but the qualifying sessions didn't help us either. We wanted toend the season up front in every session but instead this is our worstqualifying. I spun and brought out the red then lost my fastest lap of theday and we were one of the few to go faster. It dropped me two spots. Therace should be fun and there are places to pass but the field is socompetitive that it is more difficult. We will have to not only pick uppositions on track but also in the pit stops. The Havoline crew has done itmany times this year and hopefully tomorrow will not be an exception."

TONY KANAAN (#10 Pioneer/WorldCom Honda/Lola/Bridgestone): "Once again, Ihave to say we're disappointed to have to start fourth when I know in myheart that I have a better car than that. My guys did an excellent job ofgiving me a car that looked like it was going to start on the front rowtomorrow, but we never got the chance to prove it in the end. Bruno(Junqueira) got me on the first lap after that first restart, but I thoughtfor sure I would have one more chance to get him back. Then we went red forCristiano (da Matta's) spin with still some time left on the clock."

DARIO FRANCHITTI (#27 KOOL Honda/Lola/Bridgestone): "Our objective todaywas to get the pole for Team KOOL Green, and we definitely hadthe car to doit. Twice I was on areally good lap - and lost them both. It'scertainlynot Paul's (Tracy) fault. I'mpretty disappointed with the officials,though. (Tora) Takagi spins in a pretty harmless place and they throwthered flag immediately, yet Paul left a massive slick of oil and otherfluids onthe track and they leave the track green. The car took a pretty bighit, and the guys are looking it over to seewhat we need to do."

MARIO DOMINGUEZ (#55 Herdez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone): "That was mybest qualifying effort of the year and we achieved the top 10 goal we setfor this race. The track was slower so I'm very happy that we were able togo faster than yesterday and it's a very, very good starting position forthe team and tomorrow we'll just have to have good pit stops and be quickall day. I have to thank Ford because I had to borrow an engine from one ofthe other teams and it was a big help. It means the world. You saw that Iqualified ninth and the people are cheering like I qualified on pole, so itmeans a lot to me. It's my first year and I have a lot to learn still, butif I can do a good job tomorrow it make a lot of people happy, includingme."

NOTEWORTHY:

• Rookie Mario Dominguez took the best qualifying position of his career with a ninth place showing today. Dominguez' previous best starting position was 12th, which came in the season opener at Monterrey, and the event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in June.
• 2002 CART FedEx Championship Series champion Cristiano da Matta has his worst starting position of the season after qualifying 12th. Prior to this weekend, da Matta had not qualified outside the top eight positions.
• Rookies Luis Diaz and Andre Lotterer will make their respective Champ Car debuts in tomorrow's race. Lotterer will start from the 18th position, and Diaz will start 19th.