Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda
ALEX ZANARDI
I was looking forsomething that didn't come [at the end]. I knew I had a great racecar after this morning's warm-up. Unfortunately, to gain positionon this race track is very difficult. Because of that, I tried a veryconservative strategy. I followed Bryan [Herta] in as much of ashadow as I could. Then, we had those yellows [flags] whichchanged everybody's strategy. Nobody had to conserve fuel anymore, and unfortunately, we had only two laps of green to try tocatch him [Herta]. Bryan drove a hell of a race, and I have to behappy with second [place], which was a good as I could dotoday.

	Marlboro Penske Mercedes
AL UNSER, Jr.
What a great day for the whole team. The marlboro Penske Mercedes was reliable — I was able to drive it hard anywhere on the track, and it stayed with me the whole race. Mercedes power allowed me to run with the leaders all day, and Goodyear has stepped up and hit the mark with our tires.

	Marlboro Penske Mercedes
ANDRE RIBEIRO
My Marlboro Penske Mercedes was running well. Our pit strategy was to come in early to separate us from the rest of the field, but unfortunately the track went yellow just as i came in for my sirst stop (lap 21). On my second stop, the air jack got stuck in the car and it snapped off as I was leading the pits. This gave us a black flag pentalty which put us back to 17th position. It was a frustrating day for us, but it's good to see that Al (Unser Jr.) had a strong finish and the car continues to improve.

	Valvoline/Cummins/Craftsman Special Walker Racing Reynard Ford
GIL de FERRAN
It was an uphill day that never got very far. The first stop on yellow made it into a three stop race, and it seemed we were destined to play catch up from then on. When we pitted the last time, a yellow came out a couple of laps latter, so that put us behind and gave us even more ground to make up. And than when Pruett moved over on me, I had no where to go and off I went. It was a frustrating way to end the race and the weekend.

	Kmart/Texaco/Havoline Swift Ford
MICHAEL ANDRETTI
Lehto hitme from behind and dropped me to the back of the pack veryearly. Then our rear tire went down and we had to pit whichput us further behind. I was able to catch up to the field so Iwouldn't go a lap down, but it was a long day. It was difficultall weekend. I'mvery happy for Bryan. He finally broke the ice. He deserved towin this race because he was strong all weekend. I said beforethe weekend that he would be the guy to beat. This was agood win for him on a track that owed him one.

	Miller Lite Team Rahal Reynard Ford
BOBBY RAHAL
I am so happy for Bryan.He has worked so hard through his career to get to victorylane. This is a great day for Team Rahal, a great day for Ford.Bryan did a spectacular job.

	Shell Team Rahal Reynard Ford
BRYAN HERTA
Coming down to the final laps of therace, Jimmy (Vasser) was chasing me for a while and thenAlex (Zanardi) was there. I certainly had mixed emotionsabout that. I knew he was going to be coming hard but on theother hand I was saying to myself, "Well Herta, here you go,this is what you asked for." It meant a lot to me to have therace run the way it did and to be honest, I think it would havebeen a little more interesting to have the race go a few moregreen laps at the end. But, I would not have wanted to givehim too many more green laps because I am not sure whatwould have happened. But today, fate shined on us and ourstrategy played out for us. Those extra laps under cautionhelped. We were in big trouble on fuel and we don't know ifwe would have made it to the end of the race. We were tryingso hard to save fuel and were right on the verge of making thenumber and then the yellow came out and gave us a sign ofrelief. The nice thing is that at the end we turned (the fuel) upto 100-percent and there was nothing left on that table, it wasjust what you had. I got a lot of help fromeveryone in the pit today. There were right there sweating itand supporting me all the way. They kept telling me to lookforward, but I kept seeing that red nose (of Zanardi's car) inmy mirrors and I couldn't get away from it. I had to keep aneye out. Right after the restart coming though the chicane Alexgot a run on me and then the car stepped out sideways and Ihad to lift off the gas and almost went off the track and then Isee Alex come up on me going into the corkscrew. At thatpoint I thought, "Please God, if I have to run this thing off theend of the world to keep him from passing me I will do it." ButI moved over and took the inside line away from him and hereally didn't have too much of a place to go. After that I wasable to pull off a little bit of a margin. Not a lot, but just enoughto keep him from making lunge.

	Hogan Truck Leasing Reynard Mercedes
JJ LEHTO
I was just coming into turn two clean, side by side with Michael (Andretti). Then Christian (Fittipaldi) came and rushed in, lost control, went over the curb and hit me. That knocked me into Michael and damaged the right front suspension. You can't win the race in the first corner.

	Kmart/Texaco Havoline Newman/Haas Racing Swift Ford
CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI
I came down the insideand Lehto left an opening. I committed myself to the openingand Lehto moved back over on me. I had to go for it. Then,our first pit stop was very slow and I lost three or fourpositions. It's difficult to make up those positions on any track. I am happy for Bryan. Iknow how he felt before this win because I was in the sameposition -- waiting for my first. Now it's my turn.

	Target Chip Ganassi Racing Reynard Honda
JIMMY VASSER
We just didn't get the mileage during our first run and pitted a lap or two before most of the others, and that really cost us in terms of track position. It made the entire day kind of a 'fuel economy run' and that's not as much fun as really racing with the guys. But we increased our lead (over 3rd place Adrian Fernandez) to 10 points.

	Bettenhausen Racing Alumax Aluminium Reynard Mercedes
HELIO CASTRO-NEVES
Everybody slowed down for the yellow, and to keep from passing Andre (Ribeiro), I braked and moved to the left. I don't know what happened. Alex (Barron) hit me hard in the back. He must have seen me. I guess he just came up too quickly. I was driving without the clutch most of the time. That's what happened when I spun earlier. I went to shift down and the clutch pedal just went to the floor.

 

	Hollywood Reynard Mercedes
MAURICIO GUGELMIN
We had a problem with the cooling system that overheated the engine. It was probably aleak in the radiator or in a coolant pipe. We won't know for sure untilwe can take a closer look. It's unfortunatebecause it looked like it was going to be a good race for us.

	PacWest Motorola Reynard Mercedes
MARK BLUNDELL
We ran into a throttle problem. It was sticking, so it wouldn't allow me to get 100 percentthrottle. It was causing a dangerous situation because I was holding cars up. It's a shame because we had areally good race car.

	Herdez Competition Payton/Coyne Lola Ford
MICHEL JOURDAIN
I was black flagged due to my car leaking fluids. Then I pitted and the team fixed a problem in the gearbox (they changed a hose) and I lost three laps in the process. Then the engine started to loose power and finally broke, forcing me to park in the outside of Turn 4.

	Visteon Reynard Ford
SCOTT PRUETT
It was a tough day for the Visteonteam. We pitted early, which looking back was not the rightdecision, but we did not know we were going to get so manycautions at the end of the race. We came off the yellow andafter taking the green I went to the inside of Patrick(Carpentier) in Turn 1 and got hit hard from behind by Gil deFerran and ended up in the gravel. Because of the way the track is laid out the race was really follow-the-leader for a long time today.The only passing was done in the pits. The competition is so close that whoever is ahead has theadvantage.

	LCI International Tasman Motorsports Group LCI Reynard Honda
TONY KANAAN
It was a tough race. Mycar, I knew, wasn't the fastest in the race, but my car did a prettygood job. Steve Horne, my team owner, was working very closelywith the Honda guys, and when all those other guys stopped forthe second time, I had two more laps on them, so I pushed reallyhard before I came in, and in those two laps, I moved from 10th tofifth. The only thing I did today was drive the car. The rest of thecredit goes to my team and the Honda guys.

	Arciero/Wells Reynard Toyota
ROBBY GORDON
I do not know what happened but when we pitted we had a fire and it burned the airjack out. It was unfortunate. I was actually out of the car and then got back in the car. After that we were running faster than the leaders and pulled up to a 25-second margin and we came back in to pit and found out we didn't have an airjack. We had a longer stop than we wanted to but the MCI/Panasonic Duskin team did a great job. We should have scored some points today. We ended up with the fourth fastest race lap. The Toyota engine is getting stronger and stronger each weekend. Hopefully, this (the break before Houston) will give Toyota two weeks to learn more about the Phase Five engine and come to Houston and be a little quicker.

	MCI Arciero Wells Reynard Toyota
MAX PAPIS
We are continuing to make a lot of progress. I am really pleased for the entire MCI team. Almost every race we are finishing in the points. This is more points for the Toyota program. Unluckily no one could have known about all of the yellow flags at the end of the race. If we could have raced to the end we would have had a tremendously strong finish. I had a great battle on the last few laps with Robby Gordon; it reminded me of karting. It was great today to give satisfaction to the crew.

	Team Kool Green Reynard Honda
DARIO FRANCHITTI
The track was pretty slick all day. I made one mistake in the race and Tony got past me [for third place]. We didn't have the car quite right today but still we moved up to fourth in the standings. Our goal of second is still do-able, the team is really gelling together right now. So it's on to Houston.

	Team Kool Green Reynard Honda
PAUL TRACY
I don't think we could have done any better than eighth. Maybe we could have got by Fernandez if we'd had some time to work on him. We had the car a little too low and we were slow on some parts of the track. But to come from 18th on the grid to eighth is pretty good considering how hard it is to pass here in Laguna. We've now scored points in five races in a row.

	Tecate Beer/Quaker State Patrick Racing Reynard Ford
ADRIAN FERNANDEZ
The Tecate/Quaker State car handled well today., butunfortunately we had a boost problem. The problem beganright at the start of the race. It was a real problem on re-startsand accelerating off of corners. I had to use different gears tocompensate. It was like running with only one shoe.

	Forsythe Player's-Indeck Reynard Mercedes
GREG MOORE
We were conserving a lot of fuel, so we could make a run at the end. Then, on that late yellow, I was running about 35 mph, and the engine just shut off. We had no fuel pressure. The race car was good before that. We were running competitive times. We had a good car today, but we didn't get to show it.