'Collecting the fruits'

Da Matta takes Molson-Indy for fourth consecutive win

Molson-Indy Results No.  Driver  Make  1.  Cristiano da Matta  Toyota/Lola/Brid.  2.  Kenny Brack  Toyota/Lola/Brid.  3.  Christian Fittipaldi  Toyota/Lola/Brid.  4.  Shinji Nakano  Honda/Lola/Brid.  5.  Scott Dixon  Toyota/Lola/Brid.  Complete results, click here.

TORONTO (AP) -- Brazil's Cristiano da Matta led from start to finish Sunday in the Toronto Molson-Indy, matching the CART record of four consecutive victories and extending his series points lead.

Da Matta started from the pole and led all 112 laps on the 1.755-mile (2.824-kilometer), 11-turn temporary street course. He was virtually unchallenged, building leads of up to 12 seconds and driving his Toyota-powered Lola across the finish line 4.398-seconds -- about half a straightaway -- ahead of Kenny Brack.

"The Newman-Haas team is just working well together right now," da Matta said. "We're just collecting the fruits that have been growing since last year."

Only once did the 28-year-old da Matta feel pushed.

"On the last restart when I had Kenny right behind me," he said. "Before that, there were always lapped cars between me and the second-place car on the restarts."

Brack, with his best showing of the season, finished just ahead of Christian Fittipaldi, da Matta's teammate on the team co-owned by actor-racer Paul Newman and Chicago businessman Carl Haas.

The victory was da Matta's fifth of the season and seventh in the last 10 races. The four in a row match the CART record set in 1990 by Al Unser Jr. and equaled in 1998 by Alex Zanardi.

Toronto has been a part of each of those streaks, with Unser's starting here and Zanardi's completed on the circuit that winds through Exhibition Place and along Lakeshore Drive.

Shinji Nakano finished a career-best fourth, followed by Scott Dixon, Jimmy Vasser, Alex Tagliani and Tora Takagi, the last driver on the lead lap at the end.

It was a chaotic race, starting with Paul Tracy jumping the start and bringing out the first of four yellow flags.

When the green flag waved on the second lap, da Matta stayed ahead of Tracy and that's the way it remained.

Tracy, a local favorite from suburban Toronto, was still hoping to make a race of it when his front brakes began to fail. He spun on lap 73 and wound up sliding into a runoff area. The he spun again before calling it quits after 88 laps.

Brack, last year's series-runner-up, inherited second place, but was unable to mount a challenge.

There were several crashes, one of them controversial. Rookie Townsend Bell, who has crashed numerous times in the first eight races this season, was a lap behind the leaders when he passed Michel Jourdain and slid into Bruno Junqueira, sending him into a tire wall.

Bell's car was capable of continuing, but CART officials excluded him from the rest of the race.

Junqueira, who was running sixth at the time of the crash, was furious, jumping out of his car and gesturing and yelling at Bell, still sitting in his cockpit.

"He hit me in the back and put me out of the race," Junqueira said. "It's the second time this year he's done that. He cannot race with us if he cannot control himself. He cost me points again."

Junqueira wound up 14th in the 18-car field. He remained second in the standings, but now trails da Matta 118-70 with 12 races remaining. Dario Franchitti, who also crashed, finished 13th. He retained third overall, but trails the leader by 54 points.

 

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