Race No. 1

Malrboro Grand Prix of Miami
Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex — Homestead, Florida
March 13-15, 1998

©1998 SpeedCenter

Glued to the TV we all saw Andretti win the race, saw Moore almost take the win away, and a few others challenged for the lead at some time of the race. Instead of retelling the story of a race most of our readers saw on TV anyway, we will take a look at how some of our season predictions were holding up at the first even of the season.

Let’s start with the winning team. We did see Newman/Haas as a contender for the championship, and apparently the car is at least as good as it was last season. Christian Fittipaldi ran well, too, indicating that the new Swift and Ford/Goodyear are definitely a factor to watch for the rest of the season.

They didn’t dominate like McLaren in Formula One, leaving some tension for the rest of the season. The teams who will help provide this tension are Target/Ganassi, Player-backed Forsythe Racing, and Penske, Walker Racing, and maybe a few others.

Zanardi and Vasser looked good in qualifying, but Vasser for some reason didn’t have the car Zanardi had when the race got going. The reigning champion started the season on the podium, which is better than how he began his 1997 championship season. He has good reason to be confident about the rest of the year going his way.

Greg Moore really set the track on fire, grabbing his first career pole with a speed that outclassed the rest of the field. Had it not been for a broken air jack, he probably would have won the race. He finished second, coming from the tail end of the field, which is something we have not seen in recent years in CART. If the team can get a handle on the reliability issues that hurt them in 1997 and to some extent here at Homestead, they should have everything it takes to run at the very front of the field for most of the year. Patrick Carpentier did well for his first time out with the team. He finished in the points, which is something he didn’t do too often last year. In summary, the two Canadians at Forsythe were the most impressive team at Homestead and delivered more than we predicted.

When Andre Ribeiro put his car on the temporary pole on Saturday, the vocabulary of most people in pit lane was restricted to the term "sand bagging" – Penske obviously didn’t show everything they had throughout winter testing. There were some indicators and unofficial speeds that pointed at a high performance car, but it took until qualifying to know for sure that the new Penske was a truly fast car. The performance of Al Unser Jr. in the race, although cut short by a technical problem, was something we also have not witnessed in many moons. He was unusually excited when he was interviewed after the race, and except for the poor pit stops he had until the car failed on him, he had good reason to like his ride. He was steadily moving up in the field, and his car seemed to be the only one that was working in a high groove, running stable in the dirty air caused by traffic he was moving around. Penske will be on the podium this year, although the reliability of the new car may not be quite up to the level needed to win a championship.

Gil de Ferran continues to amaze us by the amount of bad luck that has affected his race results in recent seasons. The timing of their pit stops in relation to the yellows at Homestead couldn’t have been worse. They had a car that belonged on the podium, but when they were caught by a yellow just after pitting under green, the day was over. They do finish in the points regularly, so don’t count them out for the season. However, to make us believers in their ability to win the cup, we first need to see Gil have a good finish affected for once by a streak of good luck..

Where was PacWest at Homestead? Possibly wondering why they were racing in their older cars while Greg Moore was pushing for the speed of sound in the package PacWest felt wasn’t ready for prime time early in the season. They finished the race quietly, but they scored points. Will they be able to keep their late 1997 momentum? Motegi will show if they can come back from this rather disappointing finish.

The surprise of the weekend has to be Adrian Fernandez, who many had written off as a top contender after his season with the uncompetitive Lola. Now racing for Patrick in a Reynard with Ford power, he set the fastest practice lap of the weekend, qualified and raced well, too. He’s hungry after a season of abstinence. Watch out for more Fernandez in the headlines this year. His team mate Scott Pruett ran quietly, but finished 5th, ahead of Fernandez. Patrick Racing remains one of the top teams in the series.

What happened to Paul Tracy? Qualifying went very poorly (he was behind Max Papis and Michel Jourdain on the 21st starting position, while team mate Franchitti managed to qualify 13th). He did move up well during the race up to 6th position before he got into the gray area above the racing line and made contact with the wall. A disappointing start for the season he called his best chance yet to win the championship. Dario Franchitti ran a smart race and finished 9th, equaling his best finish in 1997.

Team Rahal apparently was not 100% prepared to race with the top runners yet, but Bryan Herta’s finish in 8th place indicates that they are not that far off the pace as it may have appeared in qualifying. In a few races the team should have gained enough experience with Firestone tires and should be able to come up with setups that match the other top teams.

Other notable finishers: Roberto Moreno ran a ’97 Reynard with ’97 Mercedes engine and looked very competitive. Finishing 15th in his first race for Project Indy reaffirms his skills and should have some team owners question their decision to hire a rookie for ’98.

Michel Jourdain had a much less memorable weekend, having to retire his car due to an extreme loose condition – something the team has been battling for weeks now. Will they get a handle on it for Motegi?

The Lola in Arnd Meier’s hands was the slowest car in the field, but to their credit one has mention they never ran the car on an oval before and are just beginning to explore the chassis’ capabilities. The team has committed to running Lola and will for better or worse have to work with the car for the rest of the season.

And the rookies? JJ Lehto looked most impressive, coming from dead last to 14th, while Alex Barron brought his Toyota home safely. Kanaan and Castro-Neves both ended the day with contact to the wall. We’ll have to wait for Motegi to see more from these two Indy Lights graduates.