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Smelling success After quick practice run, pole in reach for de Ferran
TORONTO (AP) -- Defending CART champion Gil de Ferran was all smiles Friday after practice for the Molson Indy. He posted the fastest lap of the day, and his first pole of the season seemed within reach. De Ferran, fourth in points behind Kenny Brack, raced around the 11-turn street course along the north shore of Lake Ontario at 108.185 mph in 58.4 seconds. Christian Fittipaldi was next at 107.750, followed by resurgent Dario Franchitti at 107.711. "Everybody's trying hard," said de Ferran, also fastest in the morning session at 106.891. "Ever since last year we developed a general street circuit setup, and it's working very good here so far." De Ferran hasn't won a pole since the 2000 season finale in California, where he set a world closed-course speed record of 241.428 mph. His last win came in Portland last year.
Franchitti, who broke a 29-race winless streak two weeks ago in Cleveland, is third in the series standings and appeared confident on the eve of qualifying "I'm pretty relaxed," said Franchitti, who won here from the pole twice, leading all 95 laps. "It's nice to get a win again, and we'll try to get another this weekend." The day wasn't without complications for de Ferran and Team Penske. He hit a wall in the first practice session and destroyed the front wing of his Reynard-Honda. The mishap forced de Ferran to serve an eight-minute delay-of-session penalty in the afternoon, but it obviously had little effect. Teammate Helio Castroneves, second in the points race, also had problems. Although he ran second to de Ferran in the morning at 106.838, Castroneves never made a lap in the afternoon. He had engine trouble as soon as he hit the track. "The car ran well this morning, but we had an engine problem we couldn't fix," Castroneves said. "So we focused on getting ready for tomorrow. We lost some ground by not running this afternoon, but with Gil running well we can exchange information." Turn 8, a bumpy, 90-degree right-hand curve on which drivers downshift from fifth to second gear, turned into a nemesis for several teams. In the morning practice, defending race champion Michael Andretti hit a tire barrier, forcing a tow truck to carry the car back to the pits. Brack, right behind Andretti at the time, was forced to go up the escape road at the tricky turn and managed to make only seven laps.
Brack spun in the afternoon session and was only 14th fastest at 106.548. But he wasn't worried. "We got a good feel for the car this afternoon," Brack said. He comes to Toronto retaining the championship lead he has held since his victory in Japan in the season's fifth race. With 84 points, he holds a 14-point edge on Castroneves and is five ahead of Franchitti. "I think we're slowly getting to where we need to be," Brack said. "We still have some changes that we need to make, but I think we have a good base for tomorrow and a good understanding of the car." Lurking in fifth was Andretti, who has enjoyed extraordinary success in Toronto with six victories and 11 top-five finishes in 14 starts. Toronto native Paul Tracy, the winner here in 1993 and a constant threat on the track, was seventh-fastest. "I'm pretty happy with the way the car was working, especially since I ran on old tires most of the day," Tracy said. "We put on new tires halfway through the afternoon session and set our fast time."
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