MOTOR RACING ROUNDUP : Unser Strategy Works in Victory at Denver

A full-course caution flag early in Sunday’s Denver Grand Prix raised a strategic dilemma for Al Unser Jr.: to pit or not to pit?

Unser stayed on the track, most of the other leaders pitted and Unser went on to earn his third consecutive victory and solidify his hold on the CART-PPG series point lead.

“At our team meeting (Sunday morning), we decided we’d get past lap 12 before we’d come in,” Unser said. “It (the caution flag) was too soon.”

The yellow flag waved at the finish line on lap 10 after pole-starter Teo Fabi crashed. Unser and teammate Bobby Rahal remained on the downtown street circuit.

The rest of the race was pretty much a strategic duel between the two teammates, with Unser winning the battle of late pit stops, as mechanical problems dropped Rahal to third.

Unser ended up handling the 90-degree heat, the thin air of the mile-high city and the demanding 1.9-mile, 16-turn downtown street circuit to beat Danny Sullivan by 28 seconds.

But Rahal raced with Unser through most of the 80-lap, 152-mile race on the much slower temporary circuit.

Unser, who earned his 14th career victory and fifth of the season, gave up the lead to Rahal by making a final scheduled pit stop on lap 61.

He came back out of the pits trailing Rahal by 16.83 seconds and proceeded to slice into that margin every lap, moving up right behind the nearly identical Chevrolet-powered Lola of his Galles-Kraco before Rahal was forced to pit for fuel on lap 73.

That pit stop was a slow one because Rahal’s hydraulic jack and clutch both failed.

Unser, who won $123,866, averaged 71.24 m.p.h. in the slowest race in CART history.

Brazil’s Ayrton Senna won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps for the third consecutive time, beating world champion Alain Prost of France and extending his Formula One standings lead.

Senna, driving a McLaren-Honda, led all the way, driving cautiously over the 44 laps. He finished 3.550 seconds ahead of Prost’s Ferrari.

Senna’s teammate, Gerhard Berger of Austria, was third, 28.462 seconds back, after a tough battle with Alessandro Nannini of Italy in a Benetton-Ford.

The victory increased Senna’s point total to 63 in the world drivers’ standings. Prost is second with 50 and Berger third with 33.

Senna finished in one hour 26 minutes 31.997 seconds. He averaged 131.272 m.p.h.

Mark Rodrigues was the beneficiary of attrition, taking the Denver round of the American Racing Series for his first ARS victory.

Rodrigues, from Van Nuys, took the lead five laps from the end of the 25-lap event on the 1.9-mile, 16-turn downtown street circuit. He easily held off Robbie Buhl, whose car was having an electrical problem, by 4.24 seconds.

Rodrigues earned $29,500 and averaged 61.050 m.p.h.