Ten years prior to the 1987 edition of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, Mario Andretti dazzled the crowd with a dramatic win in the race’s third edition by taking the lead from Jody Scheckter three laps from the finish. Back then, it was a Formula 1 event, but as the race became a CART/IndyCar event starting in 1984, Andretti proved that he still had the magic touch by scoring consecutive victories in 1984 and 1985 while starting from pole in both contests.

The Andretti domination continued in 1986 as Mario’s son, Michael was victorious, making it three-in-a-row for the Andretti family. (more…)

Without getting into the politics of the matter, the public battle that Derrick Walker and Craig Gore are having over the finances of the former Team Australia Champ Car team is just one reminder to the fans about how desperate the times had become for Champ Car. Certainly one of the feel-good stories of 2007, not only did its drivers, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, impress, but the organization was a jewel of the series with it’s well-presented cars and well-received identity. Now it has all blown up in the weeks leading to the Champ Car finale. A very disappointing situation indeed.

Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen reversed fortunes from last weekend, with the Finn taking a dominating victory at the Malaysian GP, while Hamilton encountered some problems. So are there really any lessons learned for how the season will unfold? There are more tracks on the calendar that will bear similarities to Sepang than there are to Melbourne, and the advantage goes to Ferrari. The next event at Bahrain is the venue where Raikkonen ran some eye-popping lap times in the offseason. If Ferrari can convert their apparent strength into race results, then McLaren will clearly be under pressure to raise their game. (more…)

It’s difficult to understand why Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were on the racing line during their slow down laps at the end of Q3 at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Slow drivers on the racing line are something you’re used to seeing at an indoor kart track, not the top-level open wheel series. Why the drivers or the team didn’t recognize this is baffling. The FIA was correct in penalizing each driver five grid spots. This was an extremely dangerous situation for Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso who were both on hot laps.

Heidfeld made a great suggestion when he said that a similar rule to the lap-to-grid maximum time regulation should be implemented. Let’s hope the FIA follows through.

Following two strong seasons in CART, including a second-place finish in the championship in 2001, Kenny Brack moved over to the powerhouse Chip Ganassi Racing team for 2002. The combination appeared to be a favorite to take the title prior to the beginning of the season. However, as the season would unfold, the results were not at the level that the team or the driver expected.

Yet the opportunity remained for Brack to make a lasting impression on the season. For the first time in over 20 years, CART was returning to Mexico City to again race on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. But for the 21st century, the track was revitalized and bore little resemblance to the circuit which last hosted a CART event in 1981. Ticket sales were enormous, and race officials were expecting over 300,000 spectators to flow through the gates over the weekend for the 2002 season finale.

First-day qualifying honors went to Brack’s teammate, Bruno Junqueira. His quick pace was attributed, in part, to his enjoyment of racing on the natural terrain road course. “I just love this track,” explained an enthusiastic Junqueira. “The high speed corners are what I like the most. It feels great to be on the pole today and get another point in the championship. On my last lap, I pushed really hard on my last lap and got the pole.”

The second day of qualifying saw Junqueira consolidate his position at the top of the time sheets. Lining up on the grid behind the quick Brazilian were Christian Fittipaldi, Dario Franchitti, and Tony Kanaan, while Jimmy Vasser and Brack filled out row 3.

“Overall, it was a successful session for the [team],” summarized Brack in regards to his and Junqueira’s qualifying efforts. “We improved the car a lot from yesterday and we have a good car now. I’m very happy with the progress that we’ve made so far this weekend. I got one good lap in, but the red came out on one that was even faster. It could have been better for us, but we’re now on the right track.”

A single-day CART attendance record of nearly 175,000 spectators came out to watch on race day. Two crowd favorites were Mexican drivers Mario Dominguez and Michel Jourdain Jr. In his rookie season, Dominguez had already won a race at the rain-soaked event in Australia and clinched the Jim Trueman Rookie-of-the-Year Award. Veteran driver, Jourdain, was enjoying his career best season in CART, setting new personal standards for points, top-five finishes and championship finish.

The first lap of the race was action packed as contact at the first turn brought out the yellow flag. However, it did not prevent pole sitter Junqueira front spinning out of the lead and handing over the reigns to Kanaan. After recovering from his mishap, Junqueira found himself in ninth.

Kanaan led convincingly until a fueling mishap on his second pit stop and subsequent black flag penalty dropped him back in the field. Franchitti assumed the lead which he maintained until he too fell victim to circumstances during pit stops. In Franchitti’s case, his final stop came under a full course yellow and he lost valuable track position to the race’s other contenders.

Jourdain, who was out of pit sequence, took over at the front of the field and the massive crowd roared its approval for nine glorious laps as Jourdain ran out the string in the lead before coming in for his last pit stop.

Brack, who was running a strong and steady pace all day, found himself in the lead with 12 laps remaining. The Swede did not put a wheel wrong in the closing laps and won for the first time in 2002 at the last race of the season.

“It’s been a strange season. It’s nice to finish this way,” said a happy Brack. “It’s really, really fantastic to come here to Mexico and see, first of all, this facility with all the fans. It’s really a track that has very high standards. It’s been a pleasure to run here all weekend.”

Brack spoke about how much the victory meant for his crew. “We’ve been so close so many times this year. We led a lot of laps, but not the last one. Today was finally great to do that. For me, too, I mean, to win on a road course here, I thought I wasn’t going to win on a road course. We’ve been good this year on road courses, but we haven’t won. It’s a fantastic feeling for me and the team.”

Finishing second was new series champion, Cristiano da Matta. Junqueira recovered from his early spin to take the last podium position, and with it, second place in the championship behind his countryman, da Matta.

“Today was a tough race. But in the end I’m quite happy to finish second in the championship. I had a very good car all the weekend,” explained Junqueira. “Our last pit stop for sure my crew did a good job, put me behind Carpentier. I knew the second place in the championship was between me and him. On the restart, I did a very good last turn, outbreak him in Turn One. Then I just follow Cristiano, make sure that I’m going to finish in front of Patrick, guarantee the second place in the championship. That’s quite good because Cristiano drove very well, but I am not ashamed to finish second in the championship.”

With a victory in the last race of the season for Brack and a runner-up championship placing for Junqueira, the Chip Ganassi Racing teammates gave their crews a nice sendoff at the end of the 2002 season as both drivers were already confirmed to go to new teams for 2003.

Lewis Hamilton’s victory, his weekend for that matter, certainly seemed a lot like one of those classic weekends from the most successful of them all, Michael Schumacher. Like Schumi, Hamilton took pole on a strong, relatively mistake-free qualifying, and then dominated the race with a bunch of fast race laps and seeming immunity from the bad luck and race management miscues of his rivals. Maybe the Oz GP winner doesn’t always eventually win the title (David Coulthard, Eddie Irvine, and Giancarlo Fischella come to mind), but the race remains a strong predictor of the season champion. Ferrari better take notice.

Speaking of the defending champions, it was Ferrari, and not McLaren, that spent the weekend looking like a team that lost over $50M in cash flow and five paddock spots in the offseason. On top of the DNFs the team made a poor decision in not bringing in Raikkonen for a pit stop during the second safety car period and leaving him out on worn tires. Pitting would have been the safe choice and would have netted useful points. True, Raikkonen may not have been able to make the race on one fuel stop had he pitted at that point in the race, but for a team looking to win back-to-back titles, it was a very big gamble to play at the first race of the season.

It’s only one race, but comparing Heikki Kovalainen to Hamilton looks a lot like Coulthard did to Mika Hakkinen. I’m sure the team is delighted with their driver choice and hope that many championships come their way. It’s up to Kovi to spoil the party—to his own benefit, of course!

Sebastien Bourdais’s F1 race debut was sensational, even considering the DNF. It certainly opened more than a few eyes in the paddock. With the two Sebs, STR could be the most improved team this year.

I am not sure how much more Williams-Toyota can improve this year compared to the other teams. But they have a chance to overtake BMW Sauber over the course of the season. It seems like BMW’s fastest driver over one lap (Robert Kubica) has trouble executing a successful race strategy, while the team’s best driver on race day (Nick Heidfeld) can’t produce fast starts and restarts, or enough fast lap segments to contend when the McLarens and Ferraris don’t run in to trouble. Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg and Williams-Toyota have been showing the kind of steady progression in all phases of a race weekend that will eventually turn them into a contender. True, Heidfeld beat Rosberg today, but I don’t think Melbourne is the best track for Williams, and the team will definitely improve as the season goes on. A couple more steps and they will be the best of the rest.

Whether today’s race was trend or mirage could be confirmed as early as next weekend’s Malaysian GP. I can’t wait!

“I don’t have any doubts that I will do a job this year but that means something different now. It means I want to win the world championship.”
McLaren driver, Lewis Hamilton

“If the Ferrari is the better car this year, McLaren should be saying to themselves ‘Thank god he is not in a Ferrari, otherwise there would be no point going racing’.
F1 team boss, Sir Frank Williams describing Lewis Hamilton

“I don’t know Kimi well. He is a gifted driver, as good as anyone, but Kimi’s weakness is that he is not that interested.”
F1 team boss, Sir Frank Williams describing Kimi Raikkonen

“Anyone who thinks I’m now happy and satisfied is mistaken.”
Ferrari driver, Kimi Raikkonen

Going into the 2003 Monterrey Grand Prix, it appeared that the team to drive for was Newman/Haas. The first two years of the race were won by the team and its driver Cristiano da Matta. Although “Shorty” was no longer with the squad for the third edition of the Late Spring contest in northeast Mexico, Newman/Haas had retooled with a strong driver lineup featuring 2002 championship runner-up Bruno Junqueira and rookie Sebastien Bourdais, who was the champion of the 2002 FIA International F3000 ladder series in Europe. And even though the French driver was new to the series, he was well aware of his team’s prior success at this race.

“What I know about Monterrey is that Newman/Haas has a really good car there and they won the last two races so I think we have a good chance to run well,” Bourdais explained. “It is a pretty low grip track and the layout is nice from what I know. I have heard that I would enjoy the race in Monterrey.”

Bourdais emphasized the strength of his team and showcased his own highly-touted skill by earning his second pole position in as many career starts. In addition to setting a track record at the Fundidora Park circuit, Bourdais also placed his name in the all-time record books by equaling the rookie mark set by Nigel Mansell 10 years earlier in earning the pole position in both of his first two series starts.

Bourdais cited the work he and his team did to improve his car for the final qualifying session after struggling the previous day. “Yesterday, it was really difficult to handle the car,” said Bourdais. “The team did a fantastic job. The car today was really good. It’s such a big surprise all the time to be so much on the pace. I just can hope it will be like this all season long.”

One driver who was waiting to pounce on race day was Paul Tracy. On the strength of the fastest lap in first-day qualifying, Tracy was guaranteed a front-row starting spot next to the quick rookie despite not running a single lap in final qualifying. An incident in morning practice left Tracy’s primary car with a cracked tub and forced the team to prepare his backup car for the race. Tracy knew his misfortune could in fact lead to an advantage on race day.

“One good thing about not going out in qualifying is that we have fresh tires for the race.” Tracy further noted that he had no doubts about running his backup car for the race. “We ran the back-up car in our testing session in Fontana last week and everything went smoothly. I don’t think Team Players will have trouble setting it up just like the primary car on Friday. I feel very confident for the race.”

The statistics also seemed to favor Tracy as he had won the season-opening race in St. Petersburg after also starting on the outside of the front row next to Bourdais. With this season being the first that Tracy was running with a team representing his home country of Canada, the “Thrill from West Hill” was looking to keep up the momentum gained from the first race of the season.

Much like the previous race, Bourdais took the opening lead ahead of Tracy, who was biding his time in the early laps. And in another act of symmetry to the first race, Tracy took advantage when a miscommunication during pit stops thwarted the Newman/Haas driver’s quest for victory. Bourdais ended up retiring from the race when he contacted the wall after setting some blistering laps in an attempt to make up lost ground.

As Tracy rolled on to victory, the hometown crowd roared their approval for the second place finisher. Michel Jourdain Jr. started the race in fifth but steadily worked his way up to second shortly before half distance. He briefly challenged Tracy on a late-race restart but ultimately, was very satisfied with the runner-up spot at the checkered flag. Jourdain’s finish matched his career best and made him the first Mexican driver to ever stand on the podium at the Monterrey race.

“Just to finish in the podium, it’s great. To finish on the podium in Mexico is unbelievable,” Jourdain enthused after the race. “The crowd is just so great. They support us so nicely. It’s a great feeling.”

A solid performance put Alex Tagliani on the last step of the podium in third. But the Mexican faithful were delighted with yet another high finish for one for their countrymen as Adrian Fernandez came home in fourth.

“It was a very good race. I am very happy with our finish,” stated Fernandez. “With Michel second and me fourth, what better place to finish than here in Monterrey. Two Mexicans in the top four is really fantastic for our country.”

Rounding out the top five was a disappointed Junqueira. After coming over to the defending championship team, the Brazilian driver had many pundits picking him as the championship favorite. But after the first two races, Junqueira found himself third in the points.

“It was a tough two races but I am confident that the Newman/Haas team is very, very good and that we’re going to be able to recreate ourselves.” Junqueira further noted that, “We’re still third in the championship. It is not the ideal thing, but we’re still third.”

Yet, it was difficult to see how anyone would be able to slow down championship leader Tracy. With his Monterrey victory, Tracy became the first CART driver in 21 years to open the season with two consecutive wins. This feat was last accomplished by Rick Mears, who went on to win the championship in 1982. The win was also Tracy’s 21st of his career which consolidated his position as having the most wins of any active driver in the series. Further historical significance came from the fact that Tracy and Jourdain finished 1-2 in each of the first two races of the year. The last time this happened was in 1980 when Johnny Rutherford and Tom Sneva earned two consecutive 1-2 finishes in the first two races. Rutherford went on to claim the series championship that season. For Tracy, it was a dream start to the season, and it laid the foundation for what would ultimately turn out to be a career year and a series championship for the popular 13-year veteran.

“In itself, unification is not some magic formula able to take us forward. It’s going to take an awful lot of hard work.”

Champ Car co-founder Kevin Kalkhoven

“It really has been 30 years since the sport of open-wheel racing has been unified. There were periods of years where we worked closely together and better together, but by and large there were periods of years where we weren’t so good at that.”

Tony George, Indy Racing League CEO