Penske Team at Least Makes Fast Getaway : Analysis: Overconfidence and failure to match opponents’ improvements brought about Unser and Fittipaldi’s downfall at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The arrogance bred by success might have done in the proud Penske team, champions of Indy car racing until last Sunday at 6 p.m.

That was when failure became a reality. Defending champion Al Unser Jr. couldn’t find enough speed to make the 33-car starting grid, and his teammate, two-time winner Emerson Fittipaldi was bumped from the field.

And then Roger Penske and his team showed more speed getting out of Indianapolis Motor Speedway than they had all month on the track.

Penske headed home Sunday night to Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and Fittipaldi left for Key Biscayne, Fla. Unser left Monday for Albuquerque, N.M.

By noon Monday, there wasn’t a vestige of Team Penske in Gasoline Alley. Every sign, placard, sticker and logo had been removed from their four garages, which looked as if they had never been occupied.

At 3 p.m., the team’s silver and black 18-wheel transporter left the track, loaded with the Penske cars. It was headed for Milwaukee, where Unser and Fittipaldi will be back in action June 4.

“The drivers and I will be back for the race,” Penske had said before departing. “We have a lot of corporate friends and sponsors coming in to watch and we want to help entertain them.”

The entertainment was supposed to have been Al Jr. and Emmo racing around the track in another show of Penske power.

What happened?

It probably started last year when Penske, taking advantage of a Speedway-only rule, brought powerful 209-cubic-inch push-rod engines, built by Ilmor and carrying Mercedes-Benz nameplates, and put one each in cars driven by Unser, Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy. They had tested the new power plant in a 500-mile simulated race at Penske’s own Michigan International Raceway.

It was bullet-proof and Unser put it on the pole. Then he and Fittipaldi led 193 of the 200 laps before Unser won the race.

The engine was eligible for the one race only, but when the Penske drivers went back to the conventional Ilmor Indy V-8, it won 11 of the 16 PPG Cup races and the championship.

During the off-season, when the teams using Lola and Reynard chassis were testing the new models, and Firestone was testing 10,000 miles on its new tires, the Penske team showed only minimal interest when its speeds were not up to those being posted by others at Indianapolis.

Even after the ’95 Penskes had performed poorly in races at Miami and Surfers Paradise, Australia, concern was forgotten when Unser won at Long Beach and Fittipaldi on the oval at Nazareth, Pa.

But from the first day at Indy, neither Unser nor Fittipaldi was up to speed.

“We’re working on a few things,” Unser said that first week. “We’ve been fine-tuning the car. Our guys are on top of it and we’ll be OK.”

Day after day, though, the Penskes were stuck around 223 and 224 m.p.h., while many of the others were at 230 or better. The high speeds shown by the Menard pair of Arie Luyendyk and Scott Brayton deflected attention from the Penske problems.

The first shock wave hit when neither Unser nor Fittipaldi even attempted a qualifying run on the rainy first weekend.

And the first inkling of failure appeared when Penske admitted that he was thinking of buying other chassis for his drivers.

“First, we’re going to change some things on our existing cars,” he said. “Our ’95 car, we want to look on it as an engineering exercise.”

Bobby Rahal made his backup Lolas available. Pagan Racing offered a Reynard that Roberto Guerrero had tested.

And Penske resurrected the year-old car Unser had won in from the museum at his Toyota dealership in Downey. Fittipaldi could coax only 220 m.p.h. out of it.

Unser continued stubbornly to run the ’95 Penske. By last Tuesday, he had 390 laps on it, none faster than 224.

“Al thinks he can find the problem,” Penske said. “We’re just not getting the speed we need in the corners. Give us a little more time and I think we’ll find the problem.”

On Wednesday and Thursday it rained.

The Lolas from Rahal and the Reynard from Pagan were fitted for Unser and Fittipaldi.

Unser did 44 laps in the Reynard, barely reached 218, and said he didn’t like it. He went back to the ’95 Penske, saying he thought designer Nigel Bennett had the answer.

On Friday, the day before Day 3 of qualifying, Fittipaldi discarded the ’94 museum piece, jumped in Rahal’s Lola and went an impressive 227.814. And the next day, when it counted, he was running at 225.5 when Penske inexplicably called off the qualifying attempt.

Fittipaldi, on Brazilian TV, was livid. Later, talking to the American press, he had calmed down but still could not hide his dismay. His third lap was his fastest, 226.097, an indication that he was picking up speed.

The rejected time was faster than the speeds of six qualified cars.

“If Emmo can do a 225 today, he can do it tomorrow,” Penske said at the time.

Finally convinced that the Penske chassis couldn’t do it, Unser squirmed into Raul Boesel’s backup Lola Saturday morning and late in the day hit 227.147 in practice.

The car was pushed to the front of the qualifying line. He ran two laps at 224 and waved the attempt off. Forty-five minutes later, he tried again. This time a third lap at 221 caused him to wave off again.

Still, the happy face. “We have one more day left and when I pull out there again, we’ll be definitely ready,” Unser said.

Sunday, though, was a Penske fiasco. For one thing, most of the team had no experience with final qualifying day, when the bumping process starts and teams jockey for the best time to get on the track. Team Penske might have played it too close.

Carlos Guerrero went out when the track opened at noon and qualified, but the Penske drivers, along with everyone else, elected to wait until 5 p.m., choosing to make their bids later, when track conditions are cooler.

At 4:20 p.m., Fittipaldi practiced at 226.017, but at 5:09, he accepted a qualifying speed of 224.907. He was in the field, but just barely, and not for long. Stefan Johansson bumped him out a few minutes later.

Why had Penske accepted Fittipaldi’s slow speed on his second attempt, rather than waving off as he had on Saturday, and letting Emmo try again later?

“We weren’t sure how fast the line was going to move,” Penske said. As it turned out, there would have been time for another try.

In one of racing’s little ironies, Johansson drove a borrowed ’94 Reynard on his successful run, after his team had given up on its Penske chassis.

Unser made his third and final try at 5:25. He knew it was over when he blew the engine’s pop-off valve on the first lap and ran only 221.992.

“We just ran out of time to get ourselves acclimated to the Lolas,” Unser said.

One of Penske’s crewmen put it another way, saying, “Did you ever try to drive across a big city and hit every stop light? That’s what happened to us.”

Penske said reluctantly, “All the horsepower we had last year may have masked the shortcomings of our chassis. Al and Emmo both wanted to stick with our chassis and in retrospect, maybe we waited too long to get into someone else’s car.”

Unsaid was that the competition has improved immensely, and the speeds have gone up. Eliseo Salazar’s speed of 225.023 was the slowest among the 33 qualifiers, but two years ago it would have put him on the pole. Luyendyk was fastest in 1993 at 223.967.

Before leaving, Penske wiped the slate clean. He formally withdrew Fittipaldi’s car from the race. As the last driver bumped from the field, Fittipaldi would have been the first alternate. His withdrawal moved rookie Franck Freon into the first alternate’s spot. He will drive if one of the cars in the field is unable to start.

No alternate has started the 500 since 1986, when Dick Simon replaced Dennis Firestone after Firestone’s car was wrecked on Carburetion Day, three days before the race.

Indy Notes

The Reynard-Ford Bryan Herta wrecked during practice May 16 won’t be ready for the 500, so the Valencia driver will start at the rear of the field. Herta had qualified 18th, so 15 drivers will move up one position. . . . Of the six rookie qualifiers, none is an American. Andre Ribeiro, Gil de Ferran and Christian Fittipaldi are from Brazil, Alessandro Zampedri is from Italy, Eliseo Salazar from Chile and Carlos Guerrero from Mexico.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Indianapolis 500 Lineup

Lineup for next Sunday’s Indianapolis 500. The m.p.h is the four-lap qualification average speed. ROW 1 Driver: 1. Scott Brayton Residence: Coldwater, Mich. Car No.: No. 60 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Menard M.P.H.: 231.604

*Driver: 2. Arie Luyendyk Residence: Netherlands Car No.: No. 40 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Menard M.P.H.: 231.031

*Driver: 3. Scott Goodyear Residence: Canada Car No.: No. 24 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Honda M.P.H.: 230.759

*ROW 2 Driver: 4. Michael Andretti Residence: Nazareth, Pa. Car No.: No. 6 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 229.294

*Driver: 5. Jacques Villeneuve Residence: Canada Car No.: No. 27 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 228.397

*Driver: 6. Mauricio Gugelmin Residence: Brazil Car No.: No. 18 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 227.923

*ROW 3 Driver: 7. Robby Gordon Residence: Orange Car No.: No. 5 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 227.531

*Driver: 8. Scott Pruett Residence: Granite Bay, Calif. Car No.: No. 20 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 227.403

*Driver: 9. Jimmy Vasser Residence: Discovery Bay, Calif. Car No.: No. 12 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 227.350

*ROW 4 Driver: 10. Hiro Matsushita Residence: Japan Car No.: No. 25 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 226.867

*Driver: 11. Stan Fox Residence: Janesville, Wis. Car No.: No. 91 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 226.588

*Driver: 12. r-Andre Ribeiro Residence: Brazil Car No.: No. 31 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Honda M.P.H.: 226.495

*ROW 5 Driver: 13. Roberto Guerrero Residence: San Juan Capistrano Car No.: No. 21 Chassis-Engine: 1994 Reynard-Mercedes M.P.H.: 226.402

*Driver: 14. Eddie Cheever Residence: Aspen, Colo. Car No.: No. 14 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 226.314

*Driver: 15. Teo Fabi Residence: Italy Car No.: No. 33 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 225.911

*ROW 6 Driver: 16. Paul Tracy Residence: Canada Car No.: No. 3 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.795

*Driver: 17. r-Alessandro Zampedri Residence: Italy Car No.: No. 34 Chassis-Engine: 1994 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.753.

*** Driver: 18. Bryan Herta Residence: Valencia Car No.: No. 4 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 225.551

*ROW 7 Driver: 19. Danny Sullivan Residence: Aspen, Colo. Car No.: No. 17 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 225.496

*Driver: 20. r-Gil de Ferran Residence: Brazil Car No.: No. 8 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Mercedes M.P.H.: 225.437

*Driver: 21. Hideshi Matsuda Residence: Japan Car No.: No. 54 Chassis-Engine: 1994 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 227.818

*ROW 8 Driver: 22. Bobby Rahal Residence: Hilliard, Ohio Car No.: No. 9 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Mercedes M.P.H.: 227.081

*Driver: 23. Raul Boesel Residence: Brazil Car No.: No. 11 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Mercedes M.P.H.: 226.028

*Driver: 24. Buddy Lazier Residence: Vail, Colo. Car No.: No. 80 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Menard M.P.H.: 226.017

*ROW 9 Driver: 25. r-Eliseo Salazar Residence: Chile Car No.: No. 7 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.023

*Driver: 26. Adrian Fernandez Residence: Mexico Car No.: No. 10 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Mercedes M.P.H.: 227.803

*Driver: 27. Eric Bachelart Residence: Belgium Car No.: No. 19 Chassis-Engine: 1994 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 226.875

*ROW 10 Driver: 28. r-Christian Fittipaldi Residence: Brazil Car No.: No. 15 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 226.375

*Driver: 29. Lyn St. James Residence: Daytona Beach, Fla. Car No.: No. 90 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.346

*Driver: 30. r-Carlos Guerrero Residence: Mexico Car No.: No. 22 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.831

*ROW 11 Driver: 31. Scott Sharp Residence: East Norwalk, Conn. Car No.: No. 14T Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.711.

*Driver: 32. Stefan Johansson Residence: Sweden Car No.: No. 61 Chassis-Engine: 1994 Reynard-Ford M.P.H.: 225.547.

*Driver: 33. Davy Jones Residence: Tahoe, Nev. Car No.: No. 77 Chassis-Engine: 1995 Lola-Ford M.P.H.: 225.135.

** Bryan Herta is expected to start in the 33rd position because of a crash in practice. The 15 drivers currently below him would move up one spot.

Field average--226.912 m.p.h. (record, previous mark 223.479 m.p.h. in 1992)

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