|
|
 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Seventh heaven Andretti establishes Molson Indy victory mark
Updated: Sunday July 15, 2001 7:16 PM
TORONTO (AP) -- For once, Michael Andretti didn't have to worry about fuel, and he had a blast. Shuffled to last place after a bump from rookie Scott Dixon on the first lap of the CART Molson Indy, Andretti took advantage of 11 cautions to keep his fuel tank full and won the race Sunday for the seventh time in its 16-year history. "We made four stops in this race," said Andretti, who won here for the second consecutive time. "We were able to take advantage of the early yellows since I was in the back of the pack and just kept coming in and topping off. "We knew we were going to be in good shape, so we didn't have to stretch any of our stops and so I was always able to run at full rich, and that was a big advantage." Alex Tagliani was second and Adrian Fernandez third followed by Alex Zanardi and Dixon. The win vaulted Andretti past Helio Castroneves into second place in the series standings with 73 points, 11 behind leader Kenny Brack. It also broke a CART record Andretti had shared with Al Unser Jr. for most wins in one event. Unser won Long Beach six times when he raced in CART.
"I was able to race today. It's the first time I've been able to do that in a long time," Andretti said. "Normally, it's 'Save fuel! Save fuel!' I didn't have to today, and it was fun." Pole-sitter Gil de Ferran, who led the first 49 laps and seemed on his way to victory for Team Penske, wrecked the right rear of his car on lap 76 in a collision at turn 3 with Cristiano of da Matta and was through for the day. That wreck cut the 26-car field in half. "The race was going very well for us," de Ferran said. "Unfortunately, the timing of the caution flags didn't play in our favor and then I got tagged." Brack, who started third, lost his engine to an electrical problem on lap 62 while running sixth. Penske's Castroneves, who started on the front row, parked his Reynard-Honda four laps later after his engine caught fire. Dario Franchitti, third in the standings before the race, was running in second when he lost his engine on lap 32. Andretti, who won this race four times in a five-year span in the early 1990s, seemed out of contention just seconds into the 95-lap race on the temporary street circuit. Andretti, who started 13th, hit the wall at turn 3 on the first lap when Dixon drove inside his Reynard-Honda and knocked it sideways. Andretti was shuffled to the back of field at the restart but slowly made his way back up as accidents and engine troubles knocked out the leaders.
Andretti had the lead on a restart at lap 72, and held a seven-second advantage when Christian Fittipaldi and rookie Bruno Junqueira crashed together on the 88th to bring out the final caution. That set up a five-lap shootout, but Tagliani was running on old tires and Andretti pulled away to a 2.7-second victory, the 41st of his career, most in CART history, and first this year. "We had enough fuel, but the problem was that I was on older tires than Michael and the team wanted me to save enough fuel to finish the race," Tagliani said after his best career finish in two years in CART. "After a while, I was getting really strong, but with so few laps to go I needed to be quicker on the restarts." The race had three cautions on the first nine laps. A four-car pileup on the fifth lap brought out the second caution. Roberto Moreno caused it when he spun out at turn 5, a 90-degree left-hander, and collected Dixon, Jimmy Vasser, and da Matta. Just moments later, Toronto native Paul Tracy slammed the back of Oriol Servia on lap 9 to bring out the third caution. Servia had moved to eighth when Tracy made contact. Servia, running two laps down, eventually was knocked out of the race on lap 42 when Japan's Tora Takagi slammed his car from behind, lifting it off the track and hard into the wall at turn 3, the tightest turn on the 11-curve circuit. Takagi also caused the seventh caution, slamming Moreno on lap 48.
Tracy, who has finished on the podium here the last two races, managed to climb back to sixth at the finish after dropping out of the top 20 early in the race.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
